


Hope Of Morning

by Viet_joker



Category: One Piece
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Family, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-19 07:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7351213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viet_joker/pseuds/Viet_joker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Ace and Sabo reforge their brotherly bond over the tragedy that hit home, mysteries start to unravel from left to right. Questions are left unanswered and slowly doubt begins to bubble up. AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“ _ACE!”_ a voice shattered Ace from his sleep. He shot out of his bed, sweating and breathing heavily.

“ _ACE, WHERE ARE YOU?!”_ Ace clenched his head as he curled up in his bed, trying to ignore the phantom voice crying out to him. The voice wouldn’t leave him alone. No matter how many times he said he was sorry and apologized, the amount of tears, his voice still haunted him.

Luffy’s voice. His precious baby brother’s happy voice that was now all but shrieks and terrible cries for Ace. Asking where he was. No matter how much he tried to cope with Luffy’s death, the nightmares and the cries kept him up. That caused a lack of sleep at night which in turn caused Ace to have more of his narcolepsy fits during the day. Ace had managed to get the hang of hiding it since he stayed on the ship mostly now.

Ace shed the sheets off of him and sat up, feet planted on the floor. No use to trying to go back to sleep now. He needed some fresh air. He slipped his feet in his boots and grabbed a shirt hanging from his chair. Quietly as he could, he headed on out. He left a crack open on his door so he wouldn’t have to deal with the loud click it made. Being used to growing up in the wilderness, he made his way up to the deck without making a single noise.

He had been sitting there for a while, not exactly sure what time it was but the sun didn’t look like it was about to come up any time soon. Ace sat there, wind gently blowing in his face. He had been with Whitebeard for about a year and a half, finally feeling at peace for once. He felt accepted. For once, he could shed all his worries and live happily.

Until Whitebeard had called to Ace. He wanted to speak to him in private.

At first, he thought it was just a mission, but as soon as he stepped into the room, he could feel the gloom in the air, Marco was off to the side, his poker face on but the pain was clear in his eyes. He nodded to Pops, and passed Ace. The door clicked shut. Ace walked around to see Whitebeard.

_“You wanted to speak to me, Pops?” Ace asked._

_“Not me, although I will always be here for you, my son,” he said as he handed Ace the den den mushi. Ace was confused, but accepted it anyways._

_“Hello?” Ace asked, not forgetting his manners._

_“Ace.” The voice alone made him freeze._

_“Shitty gramps, I’m not joining the Marines.” Ace automatically spat out._

_“Ha! Wouldn’t want you to now.” The line went quiet, “Not anymore.” Ace’s heart beated fast._

_“D-did they found out?” he asked, knowing his Grandpa would know what he was referring to._

_“…Sengoku had been rather adamant on finding you ever since your first bounty. You being with Whitebeard and at the Grand line should keep you safe for now. Though, he traveled to Fuusha village under my nose.”_

_“Wait, what? Why?” Ace clenched his fist, trying not to flare up as he realized something horrible.  “Luffy! Is Luffy—” he gripped the den den mushi._

_“Akainu had tailed him, and appeared after Sengoku left after visiting for some time. I don’t know why, been trying to find out.”_

_“Gramps, is Luffy—” Ace asked again, only to be cut off by Garp again._

_He could hear his grandpa’s voice crack. “Akainu had gathered Intel from some of the villagers, and connected that Luffy was Dragon’s son.” There was a pause, and a deep, slow inhale and exhale. “Luffy tried to fight as much as possible, but with Akainu, not even Dadan and the other bandits could help.”_

_“…You’re not saying—” Ace swallowed harshly. Dread quickly filled his stomach._

_“Dadan and the other bandits are gone…Luffy as well.” Ace could barely hear his gramps crying. “I’m so sorry, Ace.”_

_“Lu…why…why?!” he exclaimed. “No! You’re lying! Luffy can’t be dead!” Ace hollered, unbeknownst of the gathering crowd from the now open door. Marco had rushed in for some reason. “Dammit grandpa, tell me you’re lying!!”_

_“Monkey D. Dragon, is my son. He is the most wanted man, a revolutionary and as well as Luffy’s father. Just by being his son was enough reason for them to take Luffy down. Same for you, which is why you need to stay low for a while. There’s something that’s not right.” There was a muffle on the other side. “I need to go. Keep a low profile. Whitebeard, keep my grandson safe.” A click on the other side was heard and the den den mushi was off._

_“Lu…Luffy…Luffy…” the tears trickled out of Ace’s eyes as he chanted his name. His precious baby brother, the only light he had left of his dark world._

 

Ace could barely remember what happened after, but apparently he had started bawling and his flames went out of control. He had almost burned the entire room before Marco rushed to try and calm him down. Pops knew that words couldn’t get to him at the state he was in, so he had muttered ‘please forgive me son’ and threw him into the water. He was sure Thatch was the one to fish him out.

It had been a year and a half since he had joined, but nearly a year since his precious little brother had been taken away from him. The news was all over the papers, and praises for the admirals and the army were shouted. Ace couldn’t stand being near a lot of people because it was all they ever talked about for quite a while. He had stuck with missions that didn’t require going to public, finding people that were causing trouble on pop’s territory. For once, he had listened to his gramps advice to lay low for a while. Even after four months of keep a very low profile, they had assured him it was fine to go out now.

Ace had felt like a walking shell.

“Sitting here wallowing isn’t going to bring them back, yoi.” The voice startled Ace. It was Marco. He turned and noticed Izo, Thatch and Haruta off in the back.

“C’mon, you barely ate. Thatch is going to drag you down to the gallery and force feed you, yoi,” Marco said. Ace groaned. Since then, he had been given plenty of space, but now the others started being persistent. Especially Thatch, the man had obviously noticed Ace’s lack of appetite, and the nurses’ concern about his psychological health. He heard the man sigh. “You hadn’t even noticed where we’re at, do you?”

Ace looked at the phoenix confusingly before looking around. “We’re in East Blue. It should be about a day until we get to Dawn Island, yoi,” Marco told Ace. “You need closure. You haven’t even asked Pops to visit Dawn Island since.”

“I don’t—”

“We’re going, whether you want to or not.” Ace glanced to see Izo walk up to the two. “You need this Ace.” The crossdresser looked determined. From behind Izo, Ace noticed Thatch and Haruta and a few others, looking worriedly.

Ace sighed, getting up. There was no room for argument. “Fine.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 Whitebeard had decided to stay on Dawn Island for about a week. They had docked somewhere else so they wouldn’t stir up any unnecessary trouble, though that was highly unlikely since this was east blue. Nothing bad ever happened here that they can’t handle, they just didn’t want an uproar that Whitebeard pirates are in East Blue and a bunch of no name weak pirates coming to ‘attack’. It was too much of a hassle to deal with.

He had visited and spent a day or two in Foosha village. He had met up with Makino and the others again before finally making his way into Mt. Colubo, where Luffy and Dadan and the other bandits’ graves were. It was really nice to see her again, she really hadn’t changed at all, didn’t even looked like she aged. The damage made by the marines was obvious, some people sustained injuries. People said that when Shanks and his crew came, he had helped with the repairs. It would’ve taken them forever, but with the red haired pirates help they got the job done in a good amount of time.

 Shanks had arrived about a month after the tragedy and taken upon himself to make the grave beautiful. He still wanted to find the red haired pirate and give his thanks for being such a big idol for his little brother. Everyone said they were amazed at the beautiful grave he had made for Luffy and Dadan and the others. They had fully accepted Shanks and his crew into the tiny town as one of their own and welcomed them any time they came by.

After meeting with a few people, he finally decided to head on up to the mountain. It was quite the walk, but fairly easy to remember. He didn’t know why Luffy just go back to Foosha village if he wanted, but Ace was glad Luffy never opted for that. He never gave up anything he set himself to.

Was that why Ace still couldn’t accept this? Luffy had just seemed so indestructible. Nothing seemed to faze him much as he grew older. He always bounced right back up with that damn grin of his.

_“Ace! Shishishishishi~”_ Ace froze, the grip on the strap of his backpack was tighter. The hand holding the large bouquet of flowers trembled. He shook his head, ignored it and kept on walking. _‘That was nothing.’_ He thought to himself. He chanted it a few times in his head as he made his way to Dadan’s house. Or what was left of it. The entire house was nearly burnt, no more than about a four feet of the foundation was left.

Ace stopped for a moment as he took it all in. His childhood home, Dadan and the other bandits that always greeted him, Luffy and Sabo were gone. Maybe bringing someone along was a good idea after all. Perhaps Marco or Thatch. They were good company.

He wondered if their secret base was still there. It was fairly high in the tree that maybe nobody saw it, though he was sure that Luffy would’ve tried hiding there in the first place.

_“Ace, can I come with?!”_ he heard Luffy say a million times when they were younger. _“Can I come, can I come?! Let’s get Ramen again!”_

Hatred flared inside of Ace. Part of him feel like heading over to that damn rich ass town and burn everyone in it.

_“Idiot! What are you so pissed about?”_ Ace’s almost stopped breathing for a moment. That wasn’t…that wasn’t Luffy. _“It wasn’t your fault, Luffy’s fine. It’s only a scratch.”_ S-Sabo?

No, no, no, no why Sabo now? He never had heard Sabo so why now?

Are…are they blaming him? Was it because of him that they were dead?

Were they punishing him?

Ace dropped the flowers and bag on the ground as he clutched his head in pain. He knew it, he fucking knew it. He should’ve never been born. If he were never born maybe they would still be alive. It was all his fault.

He dropped to his knees and rested his head on the ground. The tears he held back streamed down his face. He-He can’t do this. He can’t go to Luffy’s grave when he was the reason for his death.

_“Ace!”_ No, no go away, please, _please._

“ _Ace!”_ Please, please stop.

“Ace.” The devil fruit user stilled. Sabo again. Sabo’s voice again, why was he haunting him now? And what was that weird double echo? “Ace!”

_*Snap!*_ the snapping of a branch shook him from his stupor. He whipped his head around fast to see what it was, probably some animal he can take his frustrations out on.

“A-Ace, is that you?” it asked again. Taking no chance, Ace flared his hand up.

“Who the hell’s asking?” he said. “I don’t recognize anyone with that voice. Beat it, I need some alone time with my brother.”

“…if I recall…” the shadowed figure from the distance said as he came closer “you had another brother.”

“If I recall, I said to beat it.” Ace seethed out.

The person sighed. “Knowing my bullheaded brother, I know better than to leave you alone with your stupid thoughts.” The shadowed figure came out of the trees. “It’s me.”

“…No…no…no.” Ace muttered. It was someone probably around his age, short blonde wavy hair like his wavy hair. A scar on his left eye, and a black top hat with goggles, and blue attire and a long black coat that awfully resembled what Sabo wore. Ace charged up his flames. “Who the hell are you?!”

“We stole a bottle of Dadan’s sake and made a pact.” The person smiled. “Luffy always managed to get himself eaten by those stupid gators every other day. We had to cut him out of its stomach all the time before he got digested.”

Ace’s flames died down, but he gripped his fist so hard he heard his knuckles popped. He calmed his breath and charged forward, tackling the person down. Ace grabbed a handful of the front of his shirt and punched him once in the face before the person under him flipped him over and pinned him to the ground.  Ace didn’t waste any time and flared up, though the other guy jumped off. Ace quickly got up and swung his feet, knocking the other down fast. Ace pinned him down this time, panting. He ripped the hat off the person’s head.

“HOW THE HELL ARE YOU ALIVE?! WHERE WERE YOU?! ALL THESE YEARS, WHERE THE HELL WERE YOU?!” Ace snarled at him. “WHERE WERE YOU, HUH?! SABO!” Ace frustratingly punched the ground next to Sabo’s head. Tears were falling onto Sabo’s face. “Where were you when I needed you? W-when—” Ace hiccupped, “It’s my fault, Sabo, it’s all my fault. I didn’t protect Luffy.”

“But I’m so glad you’re alive, Ace.” Sabo said, causing Ace’s breath to catch in his throat. “You’re still alive!” Sabo wrapped his arms around Ace’s neck and pulled him down to a hug. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I found out I lost both of you, Ace.”

“B-but _Luffy_.” Ace cried out. “H-how are you here right now? Why didn’t you come find any of us?” Ace sobbed.

“I couldn’t wait any longer. Being stuck in Goa, I couldn’t breathe. So I set off first, but my boat crossed paths with a larger one belonging to a celestial dragon. They just shot me down.”

“That’s what we heard from Dogra.” Ace said quietly, not wanting to get up from Sabo’s embrace.

“Yes. Thankfully, someone saved me from the wreckage.” Sabo moved to sit up, Ace letting him up and sat beside him. “It was the leader of the revolutionary army, Dragon. Luffy’s father.” The information shocked Ace. Luffy’s dad?

“Y-you met him?” Ace said. Sabo nodded.

“I actually work for him. When I finally woke up, I had no memory of anything what so ever. My name was inside of my hat, so that was about the only thing I had. All I knew is that I _never_ wanted to step foot back in Goa. The deep hatred I had for that place most likely overrode any other feelings I had, even if they were the best one.” Sabo looked at Ace in the eye and smiled. “And from then on I started training. Dragon trained me a little later on.” Sabo frowned. “When I opened up the paper one day and saw the news on Luffy…” Sabo didn’t finish. “I remembered then. I passed out with a fever for about three days.”

“And Dragon?” Ace asked. Sabo frowned at this also.

“Dragon doesn’t talk a lot, but he can be himself in his own way. He was always calm about everything. When he found out, he destroyed his desk into pieces or so I’ve heard. He’s been keeping to himself if he had no business to take care of, which he always did. He’s still mourning, but now he’s motivated more than ever in what he’s doing.” Sabo said.

Ace bit his lip. “Doesn’t some part of you blame Dragon for what happened to Luffy?”

“The reason why Dragon never raised Luffy was because the things he did were dangerous. He said he wanted Luffy to live the way he wanted to. He didn’t care if he was a marine or pirate, as long as Luffy willingly chose what he wanted to do then so be it. It’s the reason why he started the rebels. He hates what the nobles did in Goa when he saw how much I hated it there. He hates the fact that the marines were after children of notorious bad guys because of the fear that they would take up the mantle of their predecessor. What he’s going for is for freedom.” Sabo explained to Ace. “Not only do we go against the marines and the celestial dragons, we also do our job to stop the slave trades going on. We’re trying to overthrow the government, basically.” Sabo fingered his hat that was torn off. “Part of me speculated that Luffy’s mom was one of the reasons he started the rebellion. It’s just too odd that she never came up at all. Not even when I heard Garp and him talking over the den den mushi. I mean, you know your mom, but Luffy…”

“Maybe they’re together now.” Ace said. Sabo gave a tiny smile and nodded.

“C’mon, I know where the grave is.” Sabo said as he got up and dusted his jacket off. He held his hand out to his brother. “Let’s go.” He grinned at Ace. Ace smirked and grabbed the offered hand and heaved himself up. He picked his things back up and threw an arm around Sabo.

 Of all the people that he suspected to visit Luffy’s grave, he hadn’t expected Sabo.

Something inside made Ace sigh in relief, like some tension in him relaxed.

 

He wasn’t alone after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoooo, Sabo!
> 
> Also, expect some bit of flashback scenes here and there.
> 
> And here’s the timeline if ya’ll got confused. Sorry if the years somehow differ from canon, but this is au so it’s excusable.
> 
> Ace left at 17, joined whitebeard at like 18 ½, then 19 when Luffy died and several (let’s say about 6-7 months) months pass as he still mourn. Sabo pops in and spends a few (3-4) months with Ace.
> 
> This makes Luffy 14 or so at the time when Ace left, and 16 when Akainu hunted him down. I’m really shitty at math, but basically Luffy died before he even began his journey. I hope that clears things up.


	3. Chapter 3

He and Sabo reached Luffy’s grave shortly after their little fight. Ace had actually laughed when he saw the bottle of sake, coincidentally the same brand of Dadan’s, and three sake cups sitting before Luffy’s grave. He sat his backpack down and yanked out his own bottle of sake.

“Guess I didn’t need to get this after all.” He smiled. He decided to set his bottle on the grave that belonged to Dadan and the other mountain bandits. They sat down and brought up precious memories of their little brother. Times when Luffy always got himself eaten by a gator, to his multiple failed attempts at controlling his powers to even the time when he had gotten lost trying to find his way back to foosha himself and he had latched onto Ace and Sabo the entire time when they found him.

“Why don’t you hate me?” Sabo suddenly asked, the sun was slowly setting, making the sky glow orange.

“Hate you? You lost your memories. It was something you couldn’t help.” Ace looked at him with a puzzled look. “Sure I’m mad at you for leaving and making me look after Luffy by myself, but I could never hate you.”

“If I just hadn’t left, maybe if I stayed.” Sabo bit his lip.

“Those stupid parents of yours would still give you trouble until they got you back.” Ace shook his head. “Maybe if I been a bit selfish, I could’ve taken him with me.” He let out a small chuckle. “Though, Luffy would’ve hated me for it.”

“Not with a little convincing. It makes me wonder how different things would be if we all joined Whitebeard.” Sabo hummed.

“You guys would fit right in.” Ace smiled. “How long are you free for? Before returning.” Ace asked.

“Dragon let me off for a bit. After finding out about Luffy in the papers, I broke down from the memories returning. I think with stress from work and training, it all caught up to me with that terrible fever. Nearly everyone freaked out.” Sabo said and chuckled when he remembered Koala and the others babying him when he left the medic ward.

They had stayed there, with Luffy. Two brothers mourning for their little brother. They spent time together again, mending their bonds as brothers, in the mountain where they saw themselves as kids running around everywhere. It had been weird. In the beginning when it was only Ace and Sabo, it had been weird that time when Luffy started hanging out with them. Now that Luffy was gone, it felt weird that it was only the two of them. Right where they started.

Ace felt a lot better than he had been feeling in a while. The gaping hole in his heart left by Luffy had mended, but of course, it still hurt to realize Luffy was never going to come back.

Ace had invited Sabo to meet the others on Moby Dick. The blonde had mentioned when it was time to get back to work, he would receive a call on his den den mushi, though for now, he wanted to meet Ace’s other family.

They decided to spend the night in the mountain like old times.

 

“Have you heard of Pop’s crew?” Ace asked with a grin as they made their way to the hide out.

“Heard of it? We keep tabs on you guys.” Sabo scoffed. “You especially, Mr. second division commander. Though whatever you’re doing by keeping out of eye for a while had been making the Marines nervous. I’ve had some spies’ report that they think Whitebeard is up to something. They’re constantly doing background checks every two months after that stunt you pulled infiltrating a base.” Ace laughed.

“You should’ve seen it! It was so funny, they have some decent food too. I ate all of their provisions.”

“Should’ve taken a photo and sent it to Garp.” Sabo snickered. “I can imagine the face he’d make seeing you dressed as a marine.” Ace gaped.

“Sabo.”

“Ace, no.”

“Sabo, bro.”

“Don’t Sabo bro me.”

“C’mon, I bet you do it all the time!” damn he got him there.

“That’s different! I was on a mission, besides what happened to hiding?”

“Nobody will notice! Just sneak in the laundry, take a few photos and scram!”

“Laundry?! I’m not going to wear some dirty ass clothes.”

“We’ll swipe it from the clean pile, I’m not a barbarian.” Ace complained. “It’s not so hard, I did it when I was captain of the Spade Pirates. Just this once, to let shitty gramps know I’m doing okay.” He tried to convince the blonde. Ace paused with realization. “You’re scared shitless to let him know you’re still alive.” The fire fist grinned.

“Do you remember me saying I trained directly under Dragon? If he ever finds that out he’s going to want to test me.” Sabo seethed out. “And I found out something worse when training with Dragon.”

Ace was confused for a moment.

“Garp was only toying with us when he ‘trained’ us. If I had to put it in percentage, I would say about five percent. Ace, I don’t know about you when you grew up to your teen years, but I don’t want him to get serious at all.” Sabo said with a humorously serious face, determination in his eyes.

“But think of the face he’s going to make when he sees the photo and realizes you’re alive.” Ace said again. Sabo bit his lip.

“Damn it, I really want to see that. Think we can bribe someone to take his reaction photo and send it via news coo?” Ace patted him on his back.

“Of course we can.”

They made it to their old hide out, several trees burnt and the ground in ashes. Sabo whistled in awe. “This place held up.” He said as he looked up. “A few scorch marks and holes, but I’m surprised it’s still here.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised that mountain Colubo isn’t a war zone from what shitty gramps said.”  Ace said in wonder. “A lot of the trees re-grew and grass is growing over.” Ace rounded the tree, seeing that the steps to the base had been burnt off.

“Why did they leave it intact though?” Sabo wondered. “It doesn’t make sense, they totaled Dadan’s place, but not this?” he tapped his chin. Ace scoffed.

“Maybe they had _hearts_ after all.” He blandly said. “They burnt our flag down.” Ace pointed out.

“Actually…” Sabo took a step back. “Remember when we managed to put another one on top of this tree? With some lines? A remember the line broke but Luffy fixed it with a piece of his shirt.”

“Luffy always had a knack for knots. Always made them tighter.” Ace hummed. “Why?”

“Well, if they burnt it down, the red strip from Luffy would be about two thirds of the way up.” Sabo pointed up. “It’s not there.”

“How in the hell can you remember that well and point that small shit out?” Ace wondered.

“Working for the revolutionary army, remember? Pointing out small stuff like this is like baby steps. What I’m saying is that, someone took our flag down.” Sabo grunted as he pulled himself onto a branch. “Something isn’t right.” Ace followed after him and made his way up to the hatch of the base. Sabo budged it open with his shoulder and a puff of dust flew in the air, causing them to cough.

Sabo jumped in, Ace climbing in after until Sabo stuck his hand out.

“Ace. Can I trust you to not burst into flames?” the hand trembled. Ace’s eyes widened.

“What’s up there, Sabo?” he slapped the hand away and shoved him aside, finally getting in. The sight nearly made him puke.

There was so much blood.

 The desk had been knocked over, but if you took all the blood away it was as if nobody ever found this place at all.

“I don’t think they found this place at all.” Sabo said in a low voice.

“…Sabo…” he heard Ace’s voice crack. Sabo turned away from the desk and froze at what Ace was looking at. On the far wall, written in blood, were two words.

**I’m sorry**

Sabo couldn’t find any words to say. The pain in his heart was unbearable.

“You stupid idiot, I’m the one that should be sorry.” Ace whispered before breaking down and crying again.

 

Sabo thought it was a better idea to hide out in a nearby cave and camp there. Ace made sure that it was clear of any bears and lit the place in flames to kill off any bugs or poisonous creatures hiding away.

It was late in the morning when Sabo was shaken awake.

“No, Koala I don’t wanna.” Sabo slurred as he tried to roll away.

“ _Oh?_ Koala?” Sabo jerked awake. “Sabo, did you—”

“Ace, Koala’s my partner.” He defended himself.

“Hey I won’t judge if you swing that way!” Ace held his hands up in defense when Sabo swung at him.

“Idiot! You know what I mean!” Sabo blushed. He could hear Ace snickering.

“C’mon, I’m sure you haven’t even showed your face to Makino yet. She’s going to flip when she sees you.” Ace said as he tugged his boots on.

“For a small village, I can’t even find Foosha.”

“Pfft, some spy you are. It’s just way down the mountain. If Luffy had been able to control his rubber powers and had a brain all he had to do was fling himself out and he’d be back in the village.”

Sabo yawned as he popped his spine. “It’s nice to sleep in like this.” Sabo grumbled as he gathered his things into his bag and slipped his boots on. “I hope she had enough food, I don’t think the boar from last night was enough.”

It was late in the afternoon when the two brothers finally made their way to foosha village. Makino had busted into tears as soon as she saw Sabo. Ace didn’t know if he wanted to smile or laugh at Sabo’s predicament. Apparently crying women made him nervous. Ace snickered at that new information of his brother. After spending some time in Makino’s bar and eating nearly just about everything, in which Ace also learns that even if Sabo’s hunger hasn’t changed, he eats like a gentleman, Ace and Sabo paid Makino not only for the food, but to help her out because of how important she was to Luffy and them.

Before leaving the bar, Makino shouted for them to stop a moment as she ran towards the back. It left the boys confused for a moment until she came back with a package in her hand. This is for both of you. Open it when you get back to the ship?” she said with a smile. “I know you’ll love it.” Ace nodded as he set the package in his backpack. “Be careful on your way back. There’s an enormous tiger lurking close somewhere.” She warned before waving them off.

As the two made their way to Moby Dick, they heard several shuffling noises from the bushes interrupted them. As soon as they heard a familiar snort, both boys grinned.

“It’s been a while since I’ve had boar. Kinda rude for me to board your ship empty handed.” Sabo whistled. “Got any rope in that bag of yours.”

“Of course I do.” Both boys dashed off to hunt.

 


	4. Chapter 4

“He’ll be okay, so quit worrying, yoi.” Marco said when he say Thatch, Izo and Haruta looking where Ace had left for a couple of days already. “He grew up here didn’t he?”

“Yeah, but maybe someone should’ve went with him just in case.” Thatch said. “He thinks he’s sly about it, but we all know he hadn’t been getting enough sleep at night.”

“I catch him so many times with his sleep attacks.” Haruta mumbled. “It stopped being funny to pull pranks on him and bordering on concern.”

“He’s cheeks have sunken in slightly and his energy isn’t what it used to be.” Izo said.

“And they call me ‘mom’.” Marco mumbled.  He noticed some rustling in the trees, and out came the most gigantic tiger ever. It shocked him to see an animal that big in East Blue.

“Marco.” Thatch said suddenly as he got up.

“Thatch, I’m not going over there, yoi.” Marco shoved his hands in his pockets.

“But Marco that has got to be enough meat for a long time.” Thatch has one foot on the rail.

“Like you can take one that big.” Marco scoffed.

“I can take it with the cannon.” Izo said suddenly. “I’ll just aim for the head.” Thatch nodded quickly.

“Ah, guys!” Haruta said pointing over to two people that ran out of the trees. The tiger immediately gave its attention to them.

“ACE, CAN’T YOU FRY IT?!” a person shouted at Ace.

“I FORGOT ABOUT THE PACKAGE MAKINO GAVE US.” Ace said as he dodged. “SABO, YOU TAKE IT DOWN!”

“ME?!” ‘Sabo’ said in shock. “Man, fine.” He grumbled. Ace simply ran behind his brother, snickering along the way. “You just want to see what I can do.”

“Something like that.” He grinned.

“Fine, fine.” Sabo said before dropping his bag and pipe on the ground. He grinned as he charged forward, easily dodging a swipe from the tiger’s paw and its tail. Sabo jumped up and stuck his hand out in formation. “ ** _Dragon’s claw!_** ” he shouted as he made impact with its skull. There was an immediate loud crack. The tiger’s eyes rolled back and it fell over on its side.

Haruta gaped in surprise as the unknown person named Sabo took down the large tiger with only one hand. Izo was surprised as well and Thatch was just overall delighted at the new meat. Marco had to give it to the person that was impressive.

“I wonder if it’s dead, I didn’t mean to kill it.” Sabo wondered. “Hey, Ace wasn’t this that tiger Makino was warning us about?” Ace nodded as he came up to the tiger. Ace immediately lifted its hind leg to check something. The blonde sweat dropped at the sight of Ace looking to see if it was a male or female tiger. Male they would eat, female they would let go in case it had babies.

“We can eat it.” Ace said dropping the leg. He turned to where the ship was, grinning at the sight of his brothers. He waved. “Hey guys! I got meat!” he pointed at the tiger as if they didn’t notice.

“You mean I got it.” Sabo huffed as he went over to grab his stuff.

“C’mon let’s bring it to the ship.” Ace said. Sabo nodded. As the two worked to put the tiger on deck, the other whitebeards finally came around and lent a hand. They looked at Sabo in confusion, seeing as how Ace was superbly friendly around him and they never seen or heard of him in the time Ace had been with them.

Ace and Sabo sat on deck in exhaustion as they finished lugging the huge tiger on board and several cooks went to degutting. Izo had also made sure to skin the tiger so he could sell the pellet for some berri. Ace sat up, remembering Makino’s present. He grabbed his bag and untied it, yanking out the brown package. Sabo noticed what Ace was doing and sat up also.

“What do you think it is?” Sabo asked.

“Dunno, maybe shirts?” he laughed. Sabo chuckled too, remembering the times when Makino came over to check up on them and bring new outfits. The boy ripped the package open and didn’t notice the letter falling out. Sabo plucked the letter off the ground and opened it.

“ _Try to keep on smiling, Luffy is always watching and I know he would want you to be happy. This album is made from all the moments we’ve had together, and I had Dadan to help out also. We took these with a den den mushi that Shanks left for me during his time here. I hope you like it. With love, Makino.”_ Sabo read out loud, catching the attention of Marco, Thatch, Izo and Haruta.

Ace had waited for Sabo to finish reading before finally ripping the newspaper off and revealing a neat leather bound book. Ace opened the book and gasped at the contents. They were all photos of them! When they were kids!

“How—? How did she take all of these?” Ace said in astonishment. He carefully observed each photo. The first was of Luffy crying at the docks, a ship sailing out in the back. The next was of him, still crying, while eating at the bar. Another he was sleeping on a bed with a large snot bubble. The next was of Luffy grinning as he stared at his straw hat in his hand, sitting at the bar with a cup of juice. The next several photos were of Luffy grinning inside Makino’s bar, around the village and near the docks.

Ace flipped the page and saw a few of Garp grinning mischievously in the back and an unbeknownst Luffy doing god knows what. The one after that was of Luffy all wrapped up in bandages, though he could see Makino in the corner scolding Garp.

“I have a feeling that one was after Garp’s ‘training’.” Sabo softly chuckled. “He’s getting his ass chewed off by her.” Ace didn’t say anything, but the sheer astonishment at the memories of his little brother was in this book. He flipped to the next page. “Ah!” Sabo pointed out. “When did she take those?!” he exclaimed.

The photo that Sabo had pointed to was of them three sleeping on the ground together with their new clothes on. Luffy was grinning with his arms locked on both Ace’s and Sabo’s arm. The next several were of them three. Training, eating dinner, splashing and messing around while they took a bath (how someone took that without Ace noticing was amazing). So many photos of precious memories. Even times when Sabo and Ace were arguing with each other over something.

“Wow, he must really adore you, Ace.” Haruta’s voice startled Ace.

“Huh?” he said.

“I mean, Luffy right? In a lot of pictures he’s just looking right at you.” He pointed it out. Ace and Sabo realized it was true. The photo of Sabo and Ace fighting, messing around or whatever, Luffy was caught with a large smile and staring at Ace. Ace flipped the page and froze. The blonde noticed.

“This rest were after you were gone.” Ace said. Sabo nodded, though eagerly wanting to see what his brothers were up to when he was gone. As they looked through them, it was mostly a lot of moments when Luffy and Ace were training, and Sabo noticed the two growing. Makino had swung around again and made a few more shirts, and Sabo couldn’t help but laugh at Ace’s blushing face of when he was a young teen having his measurements taken. Luffy was off in the back sleeping away.

The next photo, however, made Sabo gasp. Both Ace and Luffy were beaten up and wrapped up like mummies. Dogra was off to the side with rolls of bandages in his hands and Dadan was in the corner shouting.

“What the hell happened?” Sabo asked. “It looks like the time with those damn blue jam pirates.” He looked at Ace, who rubbed his head sheepishly.

“I kicked your dad in the nuts and Luffy bit your mom. Your replacement just pissed himself.” Sabo’s eyes widened. “We high tailed it outta there, but your dad knew who we were and sent a bunch of thugs and pirates to ‘take care of us’. Of course we won. Luffy had a good whack to the head because some dick had sea stone and we didn’t know what it was.”

“Ace!”

“We were fine!” Ace defended himself. “Besides, it was good training and eventually our name spread out and nobody touched us since.” He shrugged. Sabo shook his head and sighed, but smiled.

“So he pissed himself.” Sabo said. Ace snickered. He looked back down at the photos and pointed out another one.

“This was when Luffy and I traveled to the next island over to find some medicine for Dogra. He was really sick with something and none of the doctors in the city would help. They didn’t even have any medicine to help. Little brat ate all the food in one hour.” He smiled at the memory.

“And this one?” Sabo pointed of the first photograph with Ace and his hat on.

“I got this hat when some merchants came to the city. Had a bunch of stuff at the docks and I spotted this hat.”

“You swiped it didn’t you.” Sabo simply said. Ace’s smirk was his answer.

“Ah, this is when I finally left.” He pointed out another picture. The next several photos we of only Luffy. Luffy sleeping up in a tree, fishing, training, riding the back of a tiger, riding the back of a gator, his head stuck in a gigantic bird’s mouth and an angry Dadan in the back trying to pry it off him. The last photo was of Luffy sitting on top of a pile of bandits at foosha. He was laughing, hand on his hat.

“Probably some stupid bandits, if I had to guess they messed with Makino.”

“So.” A voice interrupted them. “Who’s your friend, Ace?” Marco asked when the two finished looking through the photos. The two looked up.

“Ah!” Sabo got up quickly. “Sorry for not introducing myself. I’m Sabo, I work for the revolutionary army.”

 _The revolutionary army?!_ Everyone on board gaped.

“C’mon guys, I need to introduce him to Pops.” Ace said as he gathered his things back into his bag. Marco nodded and led the way.

Even though the first division commander was curious to how Ace knows someone from the revolutionary army, he honestly really wondered what the hell happened during Ace’s stay here. He saw how Ace engaged with Sabo so openly like this, it had made him not want to approach the two as they flip through the book of photos of his apparent late brother. He didn’t want to disrupt the moment at all. It was a precious and tender moment between them that made him hold the other three back from asking further questions, and waving off anyone that approached. The others understood. It had been a while since they saw Ace smile and relax like this.

Which brought up the question to who on earth this person was to Ace. A childhood friend for sure by the conversation “after you were gone” and “I kicked your dad in the nuts” which Marco also wondered how shitty his family must be for the blonde to look so proud and grateful that he did such a thing. If he worked for the revolutionary army, then wouldn’t the man be busy. Also how did he know Ace would be here or was it just by mere coincidence?

So childhood friend that went away, had shitty parents, spent a lot of time with Ace and his late brother. So many things that Marco realized he never knew a thing about Ace. He didn’t care about anyone’s past that someone didn’t want to be open about, but they eventually did open up. Marco didn’t like to be nosy, because he hated nosy people, but Ace was this…a complete mystery that the pirate didn’t know much about. Ace didn’t really talk much about himself, but he sure did talk about his brother a lot, to the point he wondered if he had a slight brother complex. He didn’t dare say a thing though. Marco inwardly sighed and shook it off. He’ll ponder about it some other time. For now, Ace needed to properly introduce their sudden guest.

As they came up to the door leading to the navigation room that overlooked the sea, Whitebeard’s favorite place to sit, Marco only had to knock a couple of times before the old man called them in.

“Pops, Ace is back.” He announced as he walked in. Marco, Thatch, Izo and Haruta had lined up beside the great pirate, while Ace and Sabo stood in front of him.

“How are you feeling, son?” Whitebeard asked as he watched Ace with a careful eye. He looked like he gained a few pounds, which made him relieved. The wide smile on his face had proved coming here was the best idea after all. He was worried about Ace’s wellbeing and was tempted to send Marco to check up on him.

“A bit better, thanks.” Ace was grateful he came here. Had he refused and they listened, he would have never gotten to see Sabo at all. “Pops, I wanted you to meet someone important!” he was a bit giddy.

The newcomer bowed in respect. “I’m Sabo, chief of the revolutionary army. I’m Ace’s, uh, other brother.” He rubbed the back of his head, a bit bashful.

 _Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Brother?!_ Most of the pirates in the room were surprised.

“Your brother, Ace?” the boy nodded at Whitebeard.

“Well, I thought he was dead for about ten years or so.” Ace looked at Sabo’s direction and actually pouted at him.

“I had amnesia….um….why don’t I explain things from the beginning?” Sabo offered. Ace nodded and they both took turns sharing a short version of how they met, to Luffy and the bluejam pirates and his parents being some stinkin’ nobles to the wretched fire, and Sabo’s take off to freedom only to be shot down by a celestial dragon and ultimately being saved by none other than the leader himself. Honestly, Sabo didn’t mind sharing this, these people were people that Ace liked and trusted. It was a good enough reason for him.

Marco, Thatch, Izo and Haruta along with Whitebeard sat there as they both took turns telling them nearly all of Ace’s entire childhood. Marco stood there as he soaked in everything he heard. There was an entire other brother that they never knew about because he was ‘dead’, and Ace lost his other precious baby brother? Two brothers Ace lost was so much worse than losing one. Losing any to begin with was hard.

“Something tells me that you being here wasn’t a mere coincidence, yoi.” Marco said when Sabo had finished talking.

“I was actually tracking you guys. From my time in the revolutionary, Ace’s name had popped up a few times here and there because of him being a whitebeard pirate. The spade pirates were rather a quick rising pirate crew so their sudden disperse had made some of us wonder what happened, though it wasn’t my mission to collect Intel on that.” Sabo explained. “Anyways, him joining this crew was how I knew where he’s be. After the…incident…I kept an eye and asked who ever was out on a mission to call me when they spotted your ship. When I realized you were making your way to Dawn Island, I assumed it was Ace visiting home.”

“Damn revolutionaries, didn’t even know we were being tracked.” Thatch grumbled under his breath. Sabo laughed.

“We’re good at being concealed, kind of our job.” Sabo said. Sabo turned his attention to Whitebeard, who the man was giving his full attention to. He was glad at keeping a good poker face, the man was rather intimidating. “I was hoping if I could stay on your ship for a while. I’m kind of on leave for a bit, something about work being too stressful, and I also wanted to spend time with Ace. Ah, and I heard you love Sake. I brought one over for you, it’s on the boat I traveled here on.”

Marco and the others noticed the glint in Whitebeard’s eyes at the mention of Sake being for him. Kid is smooth, Marco had to give him that. The large grin and his boisterous laugh afterwards had Ace smiling with joy.

“You better pull your weight brat, you’re welcomed to stay.” Whitebeard said.

“I better head over and grab that sake.” Sabo said.

“What about your boat?” Izo asked, breaking his silence.

“Ah, I’ll just leave it. I was dropped off by a bigger boat and just used that to travel back here. Although I need to call my partner later and tell her what’s going on. She probably won’t mind me leaving it here though.” Sabo said. Izo nodded.

“Wanna bunk with me?” Ace offered.

“If you promise not to burn my clothes off, sure why not. For old times sake.” Sabo teased.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALSO I’M SORRY ABOUT THE POOR TIGER. Cause honestly I don’t know what kinds of meat they don’t eat. They seem to eat almost everything and since this is a world where there’s like a bunch of different kind of animals and creatures and shit, I thought it would be normal?
> 
> I still felt bad that I wrote it down though. RIP Tiger.
> 
> And I hope you guys don’t mind with me going with Pop’s instead of Oyaji. Cause for the life of me I misspelled that word several different times and went fuck it. 
> 
> And yes, Sabo did think he had to buy Whitebeard with Sake to be on board. He came prepared and Whitebeard has his booze. Everyone is happy except Marco and a lot of others concerned for his health.
> 
>  


	5. Chapter 5

Sabo had ended up spending time with Ace and the other Whitebeard pirates for a few months already. The call he intended to make for Koala had been forgotten until Ace asked about her. The call ended up her furiously yelling at Sabo through the den den mushi. Sabo had told her of his plans and that he had left the boat they gave him back on Dawn Island.

Meeting Whitebeard himself had been rather intimidating. Now he knew how others feel when they first met Dragon. Though, the man had accepted him into his family. Sabo was rather surprised to be accepted as a brother so quickly. It sort of made him feel at peace. To see Ace have so many people who had his back. Whitebeard pirates are incredibly known to be loyal to one another. Which is a huge reason as to not pick on any of them. Mess with one, mess with all. Sabo nodded to himself, Ace had chosen well.

He had to admit, he really started to like this crew Ace joined. While Ace spent time with Sabo a lot, he still had to fulfill his duty as a commander. Not that Sabo minded, he spent that time exploring and getting along with the others. He also entertained himself when he sparred with the others, his observation haki allowed him to get the upper hand.

Ace had joined him for a spar and things had went out of hand. It had been ten years since they had a spar like this, though missing the whining little brother on the sidelines, they had kept at it. They had set it up so that no one would use too much force, meaning Ace can’t use his logia powers and Sabo can’t use his armament haki.

Sabo had thrown a pipe to Ace for the hell of it, and he knew Ace no longer used it so the face he made afterwards was hilarious. He did underestimate Ace with his pipe use though. His body had remembered using it for so long that it didn’t take long to get used to it again. Ace still used brute strength while Sabo used his tactics and planned ahead. It was when he had the upper hand against Ace that the hot head blew up and accidentally used his powers. Sabo had used his haki in time and protected himself from the flames.

“Ace! Seriously quit being a sore loser!” Sabo shouted at him as he quickly patted the flames away on his black coat. Damn, there was a hole in it already. He heard Ace snicker at the state of his coat. Sabo coated a hand in haki and successfully shoved him down. The second division commander recovered from the fall and glared at Sabo.

“Oh you want to play it like that?” Ace said, still glaring at him. Sabo tore his the goggles off his hat and tossed the hat to the side. He set it over his eyes. He grinned as he motioned a ‘come get me’ gesture. Ace grinned from ear to ear and charged forward.

Ace threw a small hikan at Sabo (not wanting to throw a full sized one because he didn’t want Fossa on his ass again), who narrowly dodged it. Other crew members had been smart enough to stay back. Sabo had side stepped it and charged forward, throwing a quick punch at Ace’s face. Ace dodged it, only for it to be a diversion as he noticed Sabo’s leg coming at him from the side. He was sure Sabo covered that in haki as well and latched onto Sabo’s arm and flipped over him. He then smirked to himself as he lit the shoulder of Sabo’s coat on fire.

Sabo growled at Ace and patted it out. The blonde ripped his coat off and tossed it aside where his hat was. He decided it was also best for his shirt’s condition and took that off too. Wow. Sabo had some serious muscles going on underneath all those clothes.

“Smart.” Ace said and raised his hands up. It looked as if he held up guns in his hands. Sabo’s observation haki alerted him that he needed to be careful. “ **Higan Sukoshi!”** Ace quickly fired off small shots of fire bullets at Sabo. Sabo had dodged it effortlessly, though Ace still shot at him and at the directions he moved to. He jumped, coating his entire body with haki and covered his pipe in it and fell through the flame bullets and swung at Ace. His brother had raised an arm, though the move made an impact on his bicep.

Ace stood his ground and managed to shove Sabo back. There was an ache in his arm now that made him a bit ticked off. He watched as Sabo landed rather gracefully. He also had the nerve to smirk at him.

“Sorry, did I hurt you?” Sabo said with his shit eating smirk. Ace only smiled back to him and pointed down. Sabo glanced down and gasped. The leg of his pants caught on fire. Sabo quickly put it out and growled at him again. “Damn you Ace.” He shouted.

“Oops.” He smiled innocently at the blonde. The blonde only frowned at Ace before smiling back. He pointed back at Ace and held up Ace’s belt. The raven’s eyes widened and felt his pants slip down. The whitebeard pirate quickly grasped his pants while he blushed at him.

“Oops, didn’t know you went commando.” Sabo smiled as he shrugged. He tossed his belt to the side and away from Ace.

“Fighting dirty aren’t we?” Ace glared at Sabo. The blonde only smiled and shrugged as he shot forward to Ace, crouching down and sent his foot up, connecting with Ace’s chest. Ace only caught his foot and reached forward to grab a handful on Sabo’s pants. He turned around and used his strength to send him flying off.

 

Whitebeard was busy conversing with Izo and Thatch until they heard a loud bang coming from the window. The old man raised an eyebrow, wondering if it was a bird that crashed into the damn window again.

“What the—” Thatch looked and saw Sabo had crashed onto the window, though thankfully it didn’t break at all. The blonde slid down and landed on the small walkway underneath the windows.

“Wasn’t that Sabo?” Izo asked as he went toward the window. He saw a crowd of pirates watching as the two boys were sparring. He watched as Sabo got up and rubbed the back of his head. He hopped onto the railing and shot forward. The two went at it again. Izo then noticed that Ace seemed to be having a bit of a wardrobe malfunction. His pants kept slipping down.

“That was indeed Sabo. What’s going on? Fighting?” Thatch came up to the window. “Damn I know everyone is taking bets down there.”

“Want us to stop the fight? It looks like it’s getting out of hand.” Izo offered as he turned to Whitebeard. The man shook his head and stood up.

“Let them continue. Ace seems to be having a bit of fun.” He said as he made his way to the window. He grinned as he saw the site.

“Yeah, besides, I know Marco or Fossa is going to come up soon.” Thatch snickered. “C’mon Izo, lets join the bet.” He motioned for his brother to come along. Izo just rolled his eyes but went along anyways.

Back to the deck, many of the crew watched in awe and quickly to worry as the spar progressed.

“S-someone should stop them before they damage the deck.” One said.

“Not it.” A few said in unison.

“I don’t wanna get hurt.” Another back away.

“Someone get Marco.” Another sighed. Someone ran below to grab the phoenix, who most likely was doing paperwork.

Back to the fight, Ace managed to melt the metal of his pants together and had them stay up.

“I didn’t know they taught people how to pickpocket in the revolutionary.” Ace said as he circled Sabo cautiously. The blonde did the same.

“Oh, no. I learned that from you.” Sabo grinned. Sabo disappeared from Ace’s sight and reappeared before him. He swung at Sabo as his brother swung at him, both effectively stuck each other in the jaw.

Sabo maneuvered himself and shot to the side, grabbing a handful of Ace’s pants and latched onto his arm, twisted around and launched him across the deck. As Ace was upside down in the air he shot his hands out and grinned. _Uh-oh._ Sabo thought to himself.

 **“Hotarubi Sukoshi!”** tiny little green fireballs shot off towards Sabo and surrounded him. **“Hidaruma!”** the tiny little green fireballs nearly blinded Sabo. He quickly covered himself in haki again as the fireballs exploded around him.

 _‘That would’ve hurt.’_ Sabo thought as his haki went away. He didn’t notice that Ace chose that moment to sneak up on him from behind and hook his arms under his and bent his head down. Submission hold, wow Ace can learn new moves and not use brute strength all the time.

“Say uncle.” Ace said as Sabo tried to wiggle out of Ace’s hold.

“Well that was cheap, using that last move. What if I got hurt?” Sabo feigned hurt.

“I’m not a dumbass, I knew you could dodge that.” Ace grinned as he tightened his hold a bit, making Sabo wince. “Now say uncle!”

“Not a chance.” Sabo heaved himself up, sending down a kick over Ace’s head. Once Ace let go, he launched himself off of him and made some distance away from him.

“Damn, didn’t know you were flexible.” Ace cradled his the swelling bump on his head. Sabo smiled at him.

Both boys panted as sweat dripped down from their faces. Both clenched their fists as they leaped forward, spun around and swung a leg at each other. Sabo had covered his leg in haki and was surprised to see Ace’s leg covered with haki as well.

The shockwaves from their haki had blown the growing amount of pirates that came up to the deck to watch the two fight. Neither brother backed off, only grinning at each other in excitement, looking at each other dead in the eye.

“Holy shit!!” someone shouted.

“What the hell is going on, yoi?!” Marco finally came up deck. “Why isn’t anyone stopping them?! They’re getting carried away!”

“I’m going to kick their ass if they damage this deck!” Fossa ran up to the deck as well when he felt the tremors and men running up to deck about a fight going on. He cursed as he could see Curiel snicker at him. That man was in charge of the weapons, as Jozu’s and Fossa’s was to maintain the deck. Blamenco did his part by carrying any of the tools they need to maintain and fix the ship if needed. Honestly they had no shipwright and everyone learned and did their part. It’s not like they needed one, they could protect Moby Dick and the ship wasn’t weak at all.

“How much you wanna bet that everyone else took bets.” Haruta said. Marco turned and saw him leaning onto the wall. “I bet on Ace.”

“I bet on Sabo.” Izo said as he walked up to the two.

“Damn, against our own brother?” Haruta said.

“You never know, Sabo grew up with Ace.” Izo grinned. “Besides, this is the most that we all seen Ace smiling in a long while. Even Oyaji is watching from above.”

“Yeah well too bad. This already went outta hand, yoi.” Marco stomped forward. “Idiots! You’re getting too carried away, yoi!” Marco shouted at the two, but his effort went to waste. Neither boys were backing down.

“You heard the man, why don’t you stop Ace?” Sabo said.

“Why don’t you stop first?” Ace shot back.

“I’m not losing.”

“Neither am I.”

Ace and Sabo kept at it. Their legs still connected for a bit until someone had interrupted the two. A bright yellow and blue flame came into their view and suddenly rammed Ace and Sabo’s head together hard. Both boys groaned in pain and fell forward. Ace and Sabo both clutched at the massive bump that started to swell up. They teared up a bit at the pulsing pain and curled up.

“Son of a bitch!” Ace hissed.

“Holy shit!” Sabo shouted as he ripped his goggles off.

“ _You two.”_ A shadow leaned over them. Both boys momentarily stop their tears and opened their eyes and glanced up. The boys started to sweat profusely.

“W-what’s up Marco?” Ace chuckled nervously.

“The hell do you two think it was a good idea to go full on out using your flames and haki.” Marco had a dark aura surrounding him that started to scare the two.

“I-I was being careful!” Ace defended himself. “I used mini versions of my normal attacks, I’m not that stupid to go crazy.” He sat up and had to nerve to pout.

“Yeah, I didn’t infuse haki with my main abilities or else I would’ve probably blown this deck to pieces.” Sabo sat up and waved in front of his nose like it was no big deal

“One, Ace your flames could have made the sails go up in flames. You could’ve easily injured others around you. Two, Sabo your haki at the end could’ve easily blown a lot of others overboard and _damage_ the ship. Also, why are you two nearly naked, yoi?” Marco crossed his arms.

“He started it.” Sabo pointed at Ace, who started to stutter.

“Wha—not my fault. You should know me by now. At least I didn’t burn your entire pants off.”

“At least I wear underwear, Mr. Commando.” Sabo shot back.

“That was my favorite belt, you better not have damaged it!”

“Eh, I don’t care. You burnt my clothes.” Sabo shrugged nonchalantly.

“Whatever. Besides, I would’ve won if I had been serious.” Ace threw out.

“ _Excuse_ me? You’re lucky I didn’t get serious. I could’ve kicked your ass _and_ destroy half deck. I just care is all.” Sabo retorted.

“Who was always the one that won? Oh? Me?” Ace reminded him.

“We were kids! I gotten a lot stronger since then.”

“Yet you still fight with your pipe.” Ace smirked, knowing he won after that.

“How ‘bout I stick this pipe up your—”

“ _OOkay_ break it up you two.” Izo punched both of them in the head. Another bump had swell up. They clutched their head in pain as they glared at Izo, who only stared back and pointed at Marco. He gave them a knowing look.

The two boys looked at Marco and sighed.

“Sorry.” Both said in unison.

“We may have gotten a little carried away.” Sabo admitted.

 _A little?_ Everyone on deck wondered.

“Great. You two have cleaning duty, I want the whole deck washed. Get started on it now since you two have so much energy.” Marco grinned at the two.

“Dammit.” Ace and Sabo said. Several people laughed at the two brothers’ misfortune.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing out the entire scene was hilariously difficult.
> 
> Also, who is the fucking shipwright for Moby Dick? I couldn’t find anyone. And I didn’t want to choose a specific one for fear that someone thought I copied the idea from someone else. Moby Dick is huge and there are like what, three or so versions of it? So I just made everyone do their part and chose a few commanders I think fit.
> 
>  


	6. Chapter 6

So wiping the deck isn't any fun at all, Sabo quickly came to that conclusion. Ace kept snickering at Sabo the entire time. He _was_ supposed to do his part and help around, but dammit this wasn't fair. He didn't do any damage at all. Was there any rules of the ship that he didn't know about?

He was supposed to be on vacation.

"I will throw you overboard if you don't stop giggling over there." Sabo said to Ace.

"Marco's usually the one that keeps everything handled. At lease we got off easy this time." Ace said as he swapped the deck on his side.

"Yeah, lucky us—" Sabo heard a crash and a thud. He sighed as he stopped mopping and turned around. Yup, Ace was asleep.

Apparently Ace's narcoleptic fits still freaked out some of the crew. Watching a person be completely fine one minute and the next they're passed out asleep, no matter what was going on then. Being used to this since they were kids, Sabo picked him up and draped the man over his shoulders and continued on to whatever he was doing.

When the two had been much younger, Sabo would often drag Ace out of harm's way and hid until he woke up. Sabo had forgotten this problem of Ace's. The first night on the ship during dinner had reminded him. They were engaged in a conversation with Marco, Izo and Haruta, who had asked plenty of questions about what Sabo does, who unfortunately couldn't let on too much information.

_Sabo heard a clank and a thud, followed by snoring that he realized Ace in fact still hat his attacks. Holy god, and since he was a devil fruit user, chances of him taking off on a boat and falling asleep and drowning himself in the ocean is highly possible._

" _He does that a lot, yoi. He freaked us out when he first did it during a feast we threw for him." Marco said when the man noticed the blonde staring at Ace in awe._

_Izo nodded. "He's not allowed to be near the rails by himself unless there are others keeping an eye on him. He fell asleep and fell into the water. A few of the crew on deck dived down to save him." He shook his head._

_Sabo snorted and let out a laugh. "I forgot Ace did this a lot, especially when he eats." He chuckled, seeing Ace face plant into his plate of food, yet still has a hand up and gripping onto his fork. Oh, boy. He knew that was a sort of defense mechanism. "Watch." Sabo picked up his spoon and lightly chucked it towards a chunk of meat in front of Ace, who immediately stabbed down with such force it shook the entire table. Sabo didn't notice he had a few spectators from his laughing earlier. He drummed his fingers near some food, filling himself with intent that he would steal Ace's food, and his brother's arm twitched._

" _He had a lot of fits back then when we were kids. He had to eat a lot of sugar or a lot of coffee or tea just to have less fits, but they still come. Actually, having a good sleeping schedule helps wonders." Sabo said, turning to the others. A few others took note to not ever touch the man's food ever, unless they were fast enough. He heard a snort from Ace, and Sabo unconsciously took a napkin and handed it right in Ace's face. The man accepted it without hesitation and wiped his face clean._

" _Ahh, shit. Fell asleep again." He muttered before resuming back to eating his food. Sabo's smile faltered when he noticed Ace's eating habits changed. He was sure that Ace would have still had the same eating habits from living with the bandits. Although he doesn't eat has crazy as he did when he was younger, he still ate quite a lot, and fast as well._

He wondered if Ace ever went to the doctor for his problem. They have pills for this, though now that he thought about it would it really work at all since Ace's body temperature was higher than the normal person? So wouldn't it burn out eventually?

Ah, that would suck.

Sabo continued on mopping the deck, Ace would wake up in a bit eventually. For now, he just wanted to get finished as soon as possible. _'Lucky ass hole gets to take a nap.'_ Sabo complained. The blonde then looked up and noticed a whale figurehead sailing toward them.

"HEY POPS, THE SHIP IS HERE!" someone from the nest shouted. Sabo observed the ship that was approaching. It looked exactly like Moby Dick, except it was a bit smaller.

Sabo just kept on with what he was doing until he Marco, Thatch, Izo, Haruta and a few other crew members came up. From what Sabo could tell, they were going on a mission. He stopped mopping the deck and walked over to Ace. He shook his brother until he final woke up.

"Shit, did I fall asleep?" Ace slurred, eyes bleary as he blinked the sleep away. Sabo just pointed to the others.

"I think they're leaving for a mission, might wanna say bye." Sabo said. Ace looked over to the others standing around.

"Ah, Thatch and a few others are supposed to go on a mission for some small territory dispute. Nothing he can't handle though, and the others done with their mission are now just getting back." Ace said as he sat up and yawned. "I think some guys from my division are on there." He got up and stretched.

"C'mon, let's go over." Sabo said. The two made their way over to the commanders.

"Leaving already, Thatch?" Ace said as he rubbed his eyes. The man with the pompadour nodded.

"Yup, don't miss me too much now."

"I know Marco won't. He won't have to worry about your pranks for a while." Izo said. "Anyways, try not to have too much fun."

"You're just jealous that I'm going and you're not." Thatch grinned at him.

"Damn right, it's been a while and I need to shoot something." Izo huffed.

"Maybe next time, yoi." Marco said. "Just don't get carried away and do your job. And don't run off either." Marco warned the man.

"What am I, twelve?" Thatch threw his hands up.

"With those pranks you're pulling, yes." Marco retorted.

Sabo kept quiet as he watched the ship anchor next to them. He had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach, though he didn't know why. Something on that ship made him feel uneasy.

The revolutionary chief kept his eye on the ship as people came out and greeted the commanders and boarded. A few staying on the boat and a few leaving. Sabo thought about looking away until a laugh put chills through his body.

"Zehahahahaha! Good to be home!" the man heaved himself over the rails and jumped onto the deck. He was large, hairy, some teeth missing. There was something awful about him that Sabo didn't like. It reminded him of BlueJam and Porchemy.

"Ah, Teach!" Ace greeted the man. "How was the mission? Everything go alright?"

"It went great! Made a few friends along the way. Who's our guest? A new brother?" Teach asked as he spotted Sabo off to the side.

"Ah, I'm Sabo, Ace's brother. Whitebeard let me stay for a while so Ace and I can reconnect." Sabo introduced himself before anyone said anything. Not wanting to be impolite despite his guts not liking this man, he presented a smile and stuck his hand out. Teach grinned and shook Sabo's hand, rather hard too by the way.

"Well I'm beat. I'll be heading on in, good luck with your mission!" Teach said as he walked away.

"I'll be back in two weeks!" Thatch said as he boarded the other ship. Everyone waved the man as the ship sailed off.

"Dude you alright?" Ace asked when he noticed Sabo was being too quiet. Sabo only sighed and pointed down to the ground.

"You're cleaning that up." He said when Ace finally noticed that a few had tracked caked mud onto the deck. "Since you fell asleep in all."

"What tha—dammit I cleaned this already!" Ace complained.

"You do that. I bet I can finish before you anyways."

"Oh-ho, you want to play it like that then?" Sabo grinned at Ace.

"I don't care, just get back to work, yoi." Marco rolled his eyes at the boy's antics. He watched them take off and speed washing the deck.

"Tell me you noticed how weird Sabo was when the others got back." Haruta asked as he leaned onto the rails.

"Of course I did. I'm not a sniper for nothing." Izo crossed his arms. "Especially when he met Teach."

"Just keep an eye between the two of them, yoi. I don't want anything bad happening that would result in Pop's kicking Sabo off the Moby Dick." Marco said as he watched Sabo. The two nodded at the phoenix. "Don't run around so much! One of you—ah too late." Marco tried to warn them not to run around on a wet deck or someone might slip. Someone being Ace, who then fell over the rail. The phoenix fought the urge to slap his own forehead at their misfortune.

"Ah, shit!" Sabo dropped his mop and threw himself overboard and dove for Ace. A few other members on the deck had dropped a rope ladder over the side.

"Idiots." Marco muttered as he walked off.

 

Night came and both boys were exhausted from washing the entire deck that they eventually made a competition out of on who would clean their side the fastest. Sabo regretted that now, his muscles were sore.

Ace was passed out asleep. He seemed to be receiving less and less nightmares, which was a good thing. Sabo had found out Ace had been having nightmares when they both camped out together at dawn island. It made him feel guilty that Ace had suffered both losses of his brothers and tried to cope with it himself.

Sabo sighed. Even though he was supposed to 'relax' a little and not over work himself, he still did it. Something he can't help but to poke his nose into somewhere it didn't belong, which was really his job. He was raised on that and he couldn't just shut it off. Not when his gut was telling him something was off. Way off. Something was wrong and it told him to figure it out and fix it. Where though? Like what happened to their flag that was taken? Was it confiscated by the marines?

Why did the mountain seem so….untouched? Like nothing didn't happen besides Dadan's house burning down and the ground around it turned black. Besides that, a few trees here or there but the remainder of the forest seemed okay.

_And that blood._ All that blood.

Judging from the destruction of the village, they most likely found Luffy in foosha first. Probably injured and quickly made his way to the mountains, up to their secret base. What the hell Luffy? What was it that he was trying to tell them? _**I'm sorry?**_ Sorry for what though? The fact that he was hunted down by a god damn admiral and died? It was beyond Luffy's capability to deal with someone like that. He shouldn't have to apologize.

Luffy may have used his devil fruit abilities to flung himself and made less blood trails, so that might have been why he didn't see any at all. From what Ace told him, Garp made it sound like a war zone, too many marines coming to Dawn Island, but it didn't seem that way. He knew that even Garp didn't buy it either. Sengoku being there in the first place was heavily suspicious enough, but that man was suspicious to begin with. He remembered the man having an adopted son that worked for his brother, who happened to be a captain of a pirate crew.

Being a double agent was tricky, something Sabo wouldn't do. They'd have to make bonds and be careful and then eventually back stab the people they had been with. Sabo just liked the straight forward approach, sneaky but nothing along the lines of being a double or triple agent. It wasn't his thing.

Once this year was up and he has to go back to his duties, he needed to find out what on earth Sengoku was doing there in the first place. Maybe if Whitebeard decided to dock somewhere for like, a long week, but the old man wasn't stupid enough to dock near marines. Sabo would have to cut his time with Ace short and do some investigations himself. Koala was definitely going to chew his ass but to hell with it. All these damn thoughts in his head was stressing him out.

And another thing. Marshall D. Teach, who the hell was that man? There was something _off_ about him that Sabo couldn't figure out. He was another D., and that made Sabo put himself on edge around the man. How anyone didn't feel anything bad from the man was beyond him. He'd have to either keep an eye on him or distance himself from him. He was sure that the other commanders that saw Thatch off noticed him being weird so that would put him in a rather awkward situation. He didn't want the entire ship and Whitebeard against him if something happened.

Sabo just shook his head and tried to get rid of the thoughts. Too many questions and none he had the answers to. He turned on his side and tried to fall back asleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll, I hate him too but he had to be here for the sake of the story.
> 
> Also, there will be a lot of Sabo's perspective as well in the story along with Ace. They're both the main characters, really. Even though the story is about Ace, it's also about Sabo as well! I can't leave him out. I don't see many stories where it centers around Sabo. Hope you don't mind. I really suck at summaries.


	7. Chapter 7

Two weeks had passed and miraculously nothing bad had happened between him and Teach. The man mainly kept to himself and in his room, but he did go out and made his rounds.

He had to admit, two weeks with no Thatch was pretty uneventful. The man knew how to make things exciting. He was sure that even Marco started to miss him too. The thought made Sabo grin, even Ace seemed down at Thatch's absence.

Ace and Sabo had to suffer deck duty for a few more days after that and Marco finally let them off when a few other members had started to get a bit riled up. Something about competition between divisions that happen from time to time. Marco eventually ended the dispute every time. Sabo was just thankful that he didn't have to swab the deck anymore. He was a little ways from throwing the mob into the sea. Sabo was disappointed that he and Ace couldn't spar like that anymore unless they were on land.

Sabo was in the nest as he talked with someone from the base on something when he spotted the familiar ship sailing toward them.

"I'll talk to you later." He said suddenly and hung up before he gave the other a chance to say something. He heard the sound of wings flapping and noticed a blue and yellow aura. Sabo popped his head out from the nest and glanced up. He spotted Marco in his phoenix form perched on top of the nest. "Missed him, huh?" Sabo grinned up at Marco, who seemed to puff up and looked away. He chuckled for a moment and made his way down the nest when he saw people come up the deck, along with Ace.

Sabo easily spotted Thatch by his pompadour on the deck. The man grinned and waved at them with excitement. The man was in good spirits, something great must've happened on his mission. Soon enough, the ship finally anchored next to the Moby Dick, and an exchange of pirates swapped. Thatch hopped on board, a grand smile on his face as he held up a small chest.

"Thatch, why in good spirits, man?" someone in the small crowd asked. The fourth division commander grinned even wider. He had spotted Ace, who looked as if he had woken up. Probably from another fit again.

"Ah, Ace! Guess what I found?" Thatch asked. Ace looked at the man as he opened up the chest.

"Isn't that a devil's fruit?" Ace asked, recognizing the swirled pattern on the purple fruit.

"Yup! I don't know which fruit it is yet, though. I think we have a book of devils fruit in the library, don't we?" Thatch wondered.

Sabo tensed, quickly glancing around and spotted Teach, who was beside Ace. The large man's face was shocked."I can help you with that. I have a book on devils fruit that I carry around. It's in my bag." Sabo offered. He actually did have one, you never know if a person might need it one day. It was something handy to keep.

"That would help a lot. I'll see you later after I have to deal with everything else. By the way, where's Marco?" he wondered. He was about to look up until Marco shifted back to a human, save for his feet, and perched on his shoulders.

"Well didn't you have fun, yoi." Marco smirked at the man.

"Well, it was interesting. I found the fruit when I got lost and this guy I asked for directions made me completely more lost." Thatch was still ticked off about that. Stupid brat. Ah well, at least he found this beauty.

Due to Thatch's misfortune, he met up with Sabo around sundown. Marco had bugged him about his stupid paperwork to no end and to shut him up he had to do it. Though he did sneak away because he really did want to see what kind of fruit this was. They had agreed with meeting up on deck before it got completely dark. It was less crowded that way.

Thatch whistled a tune as he came up to the deck, spotting Sabo who leaned onto the rail. The blonde spotted him and greeted the man.

"Man, I really did wonder what happened to that book we had though." Thatch wondered.

"Nah, it's not a problem." Sabo waved him off.

"Did you consider eating one?" Thatch asked, curious as to what fruit the blonde wanted.

"Not really, I kind of wanted to find my little brother's fruit. To keep as a memento and maybe eat it or give it to someone I trust one day." Sabo scratched his cheek as he blushed a bit.

"Aw, aren't you sweet." Thatch teased the boy. He motioned for the boy to come over and away from the rail. The two looked over the book and tried to find the fruit.

"Man, I keep forgetting that there was so many weird looking fruits." Sabo muttered, making Thatch laugh. A bolt of lightning and thunder rolling in the crowds interrupted the two. Both looked up at the sky, dark ominous clouds rolling in quickly. "I say we head in before it starts to pour down on us." The deck was quiet, making chills go up Sabo's spine. It was only the two of them.

"Yeah, I really don't want it to kill the hair. Besides, I don't think it's in this book." Thatch sighed sadly. "Ah! Wait, these pages are stuck!" Thatch peeled the pages apart and finally found it. "Its—"

"—the Yami Yami no mi, a fruit I've been searching for years." A voice startled the two. Sabo didn't even felt the man's presence until it was too late. Thatch had dropped the fruit and fell over to the ground with blood seeping through his back.

' _Shit!'_ Sabo suddenly felt a knife cut into his bicep, blood starting to stain the sleeve of his shirt from it. Quickly, Sabo grabbed the fruit and leaped far away. ' _how in the hell did I not sense him? He slipped right through my haki!'_ Sabo cursed. This man was too dangerous.

"Give me the damn fruit!" Sabo glared at the man. A flash of lightning revealed it was Teach. Not that he needed that, he knew right away it was him.

"Wasn't he your family? Your brother?" Sabo shouted at the man. Even through all of his shouting, the thunder muffled all of it.

"Zehahahahahaha! I only joined because I know it would help me in finding the fruit quicker had I did on my own!" For a fat man, he was sure quick. Sabo hissed at the stinging coming from his arm. He glanced over at Thatch as he dodged Teach again.

Dammit, Thatch was going to die at this rate. An idea came to the blonde. ' _Sorry 'bout this Moby'_ Sabo inhaled, and exhaled. When Teach had charged again he stood his ground. He covered his abdomen in haki, letting the knife slide and cut his side. Raising his arms, he delivered a hard blow to his stomach. **"Dragon's Claw!"** Sabo shouted as the blow sent Teach back into the large mast. Surprisingly, it didn't knock the man out. Before the man could recover, Sabo covered one arm in haki and stuck his fingers into the deck. **"Dragon's Claw: Dragon's breath!"** Sabo shouted, and sent pressure through the ground, sending shockwaves that made the deck rumble. He had hoped that would catch someone's attention. It should have, because he did some pretty nasty damage.

The rain started to shower on down. He started to get a bit woozy at the amount of blood he was losing. Teach had managed to recover and charged at him. Sabo cursed as he tried to jump away, only to slip on the slippery deck. Sabo quickly looked up as Teach reached him and gripped his throat. Teach raised his arm, knife in hand and pierced through Sabo's right shoulder.

"Zehahaha, once I'm done with you, I'll be leaving." Before Teach could reach for the fruit in Sabo's hand, the door slammed open and people poured onto the deck.

"What the hell?! Teach!" Haruta shouted at the man who was choking Sabo. He looked to the side and noticed Thatch was on the ground in a pool of his blood. "THATCH! Someone get Marco and tell Pops!" Haruta ordered out. "Take Thatch inside now!" the whitebeard pirates went over to gently pick up their downed brother and took him inside.

"THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO MY BROTHER?!" Ace's voice practically erupted. He charged forward at Teach and knocked him off Sabo. The blonde had rolled away with the fruit still in his hands. Ace, furious when he saw the state his brother was in, threw his flames at Teach. **"HIKAN!"** Ace shouted as his flames burned Teach, who screamed in pain.

* * *

Meanwhile inside, Marco was in his room that was clogged with paperwork until he felt the entire ship shake. It felt like Pops used his powers, which started to worry him. The shake had knocked over the piles of paperwork, but at the moment he didn't care.

In record time, the phoenix made it to Whitebeard's room, which opened just before he could.

"Pops! That wasn't you?" Marco asked him.

"That came from up the deck." Whitebeard said as he glanced up to the deck, wondering what that was.

"I don't think that was any lightning or thunder, yoi." Marco said. The phoenix then heard shouting and footsteps running everywhere.

"Come, son. Let's find out what's going on." Whitebeard said. Marco nodded and turned. Both made their way up to the deck before running into Izou, who had his makeup off and hair down.

"It's Thatch!" he said. "Teach stabbed him! He's in the infirmary now and the doctor and nurses are working on him."

"Wait, what?!" Marco exclaimed. Whitebeard quickly walked past them and made it up to the deck, where the mess laid out in front of him. Some of his sons were surrounding Sabo, who clutched at his throat as he tried to regain his composure. Ace stood over Teach, who was still on the ground as the man tried to catch his breath.

"What's going on!" Whitebeard declared, sending everyone into silence. Haruta ran up to him, tears clear in his eyes.

"Teach turned on us! He tried to kill Thatch and Sabo for the devil's fruit!" the sentence made Whitebeard's blood boil.

Ace wanted to burn the man before him alive, but he knew Whitebeard would want to take care of him. As Pops approached the two, Ace had stepped back and went to Sabo, who had a small ring of pirates around his brother to protect him. Sabo was still trying to regulate his breathing again, though Ace could see the bruise on his neck forming. He had blood coming from his arm and his side.

"Take him to the infirmary now!" Ace told them. The guys sputtered, but went to work. They carefully supported him and led him inside.

"Bah, I'm fine guys. I-it's just a _little_ blood." Sabo tried to convince them, but the pooling blood around him made that kind of hard. Also the knife was still lodged into him.

"Idiot! Don't talk!" Izou ran over and supported Sabo up. Another had lend a hand and carried Sabo off inside.

Whitebeard glared down at Teach, who finally regained his composure and sneered at everyone, most of all Sabo.

"Stupid brat! If he hadn't been in my way I would've gotten my hands on it!" Teach snarled at Sabo's retreating back.

"Teach! You DARE break the only rule in this family?! To kill a nakama?!" Whitebeard's voice shook the entire deck. "Not only one of my son's life is in danger, but you have put two lives in danger under me."

"D-dammit all!" Teach scrambled away from the furious captain, the furious father. There was no way to convince them he was innocent at all. His burning hatred for the blonde that was Ace's supposed brother grew. Damn that brat! If he weren't here, then he would've gotten away with it, had time to take a dingy and high tailed it outta there.

"What was your goal, Teach?! What was your goal in betraying us?!" Whitebeard demanded an answer from him. Teach only glared and practically spat at him.

"I've been searching for that fruit nearly my entire life! It's the only fruit that can make me more powerful than anybody in the world! IT'S THE ONLY WAY FOR ME TO BECOME THE PIRATE KING! ZEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Teach declared.

"Someone like you? You are not who Roger is waiting for at One Piece." Whitebeard sneered at him. Quicker than Teach could have expected, Whitebeard had lurched at him. He had a hard grip on Teach's entire head. "Get the _hell_ off my ship!" Whitebeard, with all of his might, threw him off the Moby Dick.

Marco had stayed silent as he watched Pops deal with the traitor. Oh sweet god, did he want to deal with Teach himself. He knew everyone else on deck felt the same way, most feeling ultimately betrayed. The man had spent decades with the Whitebeard pirates, why was he so damn patient? All for a stupid devil's fruit? Speaking of devil's fruit—

"Where the hell is that damn fruit, yoi?" Marco asked everyone.

"Sabo still has it. Kid sure had a death grip on it." Someone said. Marco nodded.

"C'mon sons, let's get back inside before we all have to visit the infirmary." Whitebeard said, noticing that everyone was soaking wet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOME VACATION THIS IS HUH SABO. Maybe i should retitle this to Sabo's Great Vacation, LOL.
> 
> That's the perfect way to get some people's attention and poor Moby.
> 
> I've read a LOT of fanfiction where the scene of Thatch and Teach happens. A lot of people set it up in his room. Not that I'm saying 'that's wrong' but I wanted to separate the two away from the crew so Sabo has to defend himself against Teach. Thatch's death did take place on the deck too. I really don't want to make Sabo TOO OP, if you know what I mean. If he's too strong, it won't be as interesting cause he'll just bull doze everyone down. Teach in the beginning BEFORE he obtains the fruit was dangerous to begin with. That's how Shanks got his scar on his face, from Teach's claw blades. So he had no problem putting some damage on Sabo.
> 
> Between Ace and Sabo, who do you think is stronger? Sabo DID train under Dragon (I think). But Ace and his Mera Mera no mi though. What are your thoughts? Think Sabo has more up his sleeve than what he showed at the Colosseum match?
> 
> Also I noticed a lot of you asking questions, don't worry guys! All will be revealed as the story goes on.
> 
> ps i noticed i spelt Izou wrong, my bad ya'll.


	8. Chapter 8

This was not how Raina wanted to wake up. Not by loud, stupid thunder, not by the crack of lightning and surely not by what seemed to be an earthquake on the Moby Dick. For god's sake what was going on? Were they under attack? It felt like Pop's devil fruit abilities.

"Holy shit, what the fuck was that?!" her bedmate had woken up in fear.

"I don't know, but I got a bad feeling at what it was." She slid off the bed. "C'mon, let go check what's going on, I hear people shouting." Since she was the main doctor and surgeon, she had a room near the infirmary just in case someone needed her. Jun, her bedmate, was also a doctor and assisted her in surgeries but she had an extended knowledge on mental health. Jun had a lot of crew members come up to her and ask for help. The two women made themselves decent and slipped on some shoes before emerging from her room.

"Raina! Jun!" a shout startled them. "We've got trouble! Thatch has been stabbed!" What?!

"Get him in there now!" Raina ordered. Jun had went to switch with one of the guys.

"Go an' wake the others, we're gonna need their help. Has anyone else been hurt?" Jun asked.

"Sabo was bleeding but I couldn't get a good look at him, Teach was choking him. Izou went to get Pop's and Marco." He reported to her. Jun nodded and allowed the man to run off and wake the others.

Raina tied her hair up, inhaled quietly, and exhaled. Time to get to work.

* * *

The ship was quiet the next several hours. While a lot of the Whitebeard Pirates managed to get back to sleep, a lot of the others couldn't.

All of the medical staff had woken up to pounding on their doors and quickly went to work. Raina and Jun had went to work on Thatch, the man had a large stab wound.

He had been hooked up to several machines, IV, heart monitor and many things that a lot of the pirates didn't know. "Saline drip. We need more blood, he's losing too much! Grab more type XF from the storage!" Jun ordered a nurse, who ran off as ordered. They had been working on Thatch for only a little bit until Izou and another ran in with Sabo in tow.

"Raina! Stab wound in shoulder!" Izou shot off, grabbing the full attention of the woman. Damn it all, that knife was still in him.

"Go, I can handle Thatch from here." Jun took her place and went back to what Raina was doing. A couple of nurses took to Jun's side and assisted the doctor.

Raina had slipped off her bloodied gloves, washed her hands and replaced them with another pair of fresh gloves. "On the table, shirt off _now."_ She said. Izou didn't hesitate and practically tore the blonde's shirt off. "Thank you. Now go and wait with the others." She shooed Izou off. "Dammit, wait! What blood type is he?!" she asked. "Where's Ace?!" Raina said as she quickly took a look at Sabo. Three knife injuries, two of which already stopped bleeding. Stab wound to right shoulder was off worse.

Raina hooked Sabo up to the extra machines and put the mask over his mouth. _'Sorry hun' some vacation, huh?'_ she apologized as she finally injected his IV with anesthesia. She counted to ten and went to work. "Alright ladies, get ready." She said as she gripped the handle of the knife and slowly pulled it out. The blood oozing out was instant.

"He says he doesn't know!" Izou reported back to her, huffing.

"Get S negative from the storage."

"We're out!" a nurse said quickly.

"Just take mine, I'm S negative." Izou said as he shed the top layer of his kimono off.

"Fantastic, someone pull up a table. You, sterilize and prep him for blood transfusion." Raina ordered.

Meanwhile, Thatch's heard monitor started going off. "BP levels dropping!"

"Hold onto that!" Jun said as she worked on stabilizing him.

"Blood pressure going back to normal!" a nurse said in relief.

"Stitches." She said. A nurse came up beside her and gave her the sterilized needle and thread. "Prep the blood bags, as soon as this wound is closed start the fusion." The nurse nodded and did as she was told. Jun sighed. "Don't worry Thatch, you'll be okay." She murmured as she prepped him for the blood transfusion. She was calm for a moment until the heart monitor flat lined, though she knew it wasn't Thatch's.

It was Sabo's.

"Get the defibrillators!" Raina shouted. She had finally managed to stop the bleeding and closed up the wound, but Sabo had already lost too much blood. A nurse removed Sabo's mask as another gave her the paddles.

"Clear!" Raina said as she shocked Sabo.

"No pulse, setting to 150." A nurse said.

"Clear!" Raina repeated. She still heard the line was flat.

"No, setting to 200." The nurse repeated.

"Clear!" Raina prayed as she shocked Sabo again. They waited a few long agonizing moments before Sabo's hear monitor regulated itself. Raina and the nurses sighed in relief. "Start the transfusion now." She nodded at the nurses.

Hours trickled on by. Ace, Marco, and Haruta were sitting and waiting for any news of the two. Izou had ran in and out in the beginning, and didn't emerge from the room. The moment had been tense when they heard Thatch's monitor went off, but it calmed down. It made the phoenix sigh out in relief.

Moments later, though they heard Raina shouting and the nurses shouting as well. A monitor flat lined, and a few nurses that sputtered and cursed at Sabo's unfortunate condition had made them worry. Ace wasn't moving at all. The fire fist sat down and curled into himself, tensing when he heard Thatch and Sabo's condition get worse.

Marco noticed him trembling when Sabo flat lined and Raina had to clear him three times until he was okay again. Ace's shoulder had sagged in pure relief as they brought him back to life and begun the blood transfusion.

"They're going to be okay, yoi." Marco assured Ace. The first division commander ruffled the second division commander's hair. He sighed and tugged him closer so that the boy could lean onto him while he cried. "You're not losing any more brothers, Ace." He said to him.

It took forever until Raina and Jun finally came out. They peeled their masks off and glanced around at the small group that had sat and waited for this moment. Raina and Jun looked at each other.

"They're okay." They both said in unison. Everyone cheered at the good news. Marco had completely slumped over in relief, dragging Ace down with him. Haruta teared up.

"One of Thatch's lung had been nicked, but he should be alright if he lay off anything too strenuous." Jun reported. Raina nodded.

"Sabo flat lined, he lost too much blood and he has a little fever. Thanks to Izou, he should be okay now, though Izou's a bit lightheaded with donating so much blood. He's going to have to stay with Sabo and Thatch for a bit until he's up on his feet again. Thatch and Sabo shouldn't wake for a while. Now shoo guys, you need to sleep. I need to go report to Pop's."

"Ya'll look like the dead had risen." Jun shook her head when she saw a few had actually passed out asleep. "Ace." She called out. When the commander didn't respond, she sighed and marched over to him, dragging him up by the arm up and leading in the infirmary. She motioned Marco and Haruta to follow along.

The four walked in the room. Tired nurses were cleaning up everything and making sure vitals were okay.

"You know, this is the first I've ever seen you like this, Izou." Haruta said when he spotted the man laying down with his arms crossed. He had a chocolate bar sticking out of his mouth that he was slowly munching on.

"Shut it, brat." Izou blew a hair out from his face. "I have no makeup on, my hair isn't done, I have bags, Thatch and Sabo aren't waking up any time soon, and the deck is broken from whatever this kid did up there."

Ace was quiet when he walked in, the sound of Izou and Haruta conversing didn't reach his ears at all. Only the sight of Sabo, pale, sweating, hooked up to machines and laid completely still on the bed they had moved him to. Thatch was the same, moved to a bed also.

"I've gotta say, you got one hell'v'a brother, Ace." Jun said as she took a clipboard and wrote some things down. "Even through all of this and him flat linin', he still didn't let go of that damn fruit." She puffed. "He's got one heck of a grip."

The men were confused for a moment before Jun rolled her eyes and pointed at Sabo's hand, and why hadn't any of them spotted that?

Ace walked over to Sabo, careful of the wires, and ran his fingers through his blonde hair.

"Sabo." Ace whispered. "Thatch is okay, Teach is gone. Everything's okay." He combed his fingers through his hair again. "You can let go now, nothing's going to happen, I promise." He said to Sabo as soft as he could. He smiled when Sabo's grip on the fruit finally relinquished. The yami-yami no mi gave a thud on the floor.

"Ain't you a sweet talker." Jun smiled at Ace and ruffled his hair.

Jun had nearly dragged everyone out by their ears ten minutes later, and as soon as Izou was well she kicked him out too. Prefect timing though, because Whitebeard had come on down to see how the two were doing, along with Raina. Marco had stayed back as well and really, Jun knew he wanted to see how Pop's was feeling.

As Whitebeard had observed how Thatch was doing, he had glanced over to Sabo. Marco had seen the twinkle in his eye when the old man saw Sabo.

The phoenix knew it was a sign of respect, that Sabo had defended Thatch and managed to save him and not let Teach get the fruit. Who knew what would've happened if Sabo wasn't there? The thought itself made him shudder. He didn't want to think of it. He was just grateful that Sabo was here.

He chuckled, earning questioning looks from a few. "Some vacation he's having." He looked at Ace, who still ran his fingers through Sabo's hair. "That's some brother you got there, yoi. I think Sabo knew something bad was up with Teach." Marco commented as he walked over to Sabo's side. Ace nodded.

"He acted weird, pulled that stupid tense smile he does when something is wrong but didn't want to say anything. Idiot didn't know I could tell he was lying when he said everything was okay."

"Izou and I kept a close eye on him just in case they cross paths and something would happen, but Sabo was smart and didn't do anything." Haruta said. Izou nearby sat up as he finished his chocolate.

"A lot of us spent decades with Teach, so anything 'bad' wouldn't even be detected from our observation haki. We already trusted him." Izou said. He shrugged. "That's about the only thing I can think of, that or maybe he's been trained so well in the revolutionary that stuff like this was easy."

"Apparently not enough training. Teach still managed to get to Sabo without him noticing at all." Ace told them. He sighed and leaned on his elbow, hovering over his brother.

Dammit. He let this happen to Sabo. Sabo had gotten hurt because of him. He was a second division commander for gods sake. He couldn't detect Sabo in danger until it was too late. If Sabo couldn't rock the boat at all, if he hadn't let out that signal then Teach would've gotten away with it. Thatch would be dead and Ace would have lost another brother.

He can't protect anybody.

Not like this.

Ace clenched his fists tight, biting his lip for fear he might lash out. He might snarl, hurl something across the room. Break something.

Why was he so fucking weak?!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing Raina and Jun! OC's, they're both doctors with a staff of nurses as well. I think I ended up giving Jun a bit of a southern accent.
> 
> Raina and Jun are both doctors, but Raina would be the head of the medical division. Jun is awesome too, but she's also knowledgeable in psychology and maybe sociology too. There wasn't much on anything of Whitebeard's medical shit, but since this is AU and my story i can do what i want and made a separate Medical Division.
> 
> And yes, bedmate. Not roommate.
> 
> Also I checked the SBS, and I only found the list of blood types for the strawhat crew. I did find Oda's blood types he had in the series. Oda's 'S negative' blood type is universal as to our 'O negative'...right? I think i got that right.
> 
> And I don't really know much at all on medical stuff so excuse me 'bout that. Just imagine a scene from Grey's Anatomy and plug the characters in there, but Sabo and Thatch didn't die. LOL So sorry if you guys didn't like to read the medical stuff, but i thought it would be challenging and interesting for me to write it. It was cool. (IT WAS REALLY FUN ACTUALLY HAAAAA)
> 
> Also, i just came back from my first day of training of my job! Pretty cool, but now i'm sore. I really wanted to hold this off until around Friday, but i was happy with getting a job and finally working that i decided to post this up now.


	9. Chapter 9

Alright now, how to figure this out.

Ace at the moment was in his room, leaving Sabo and Thatch to rest while he had shit to figure out. Ace knew he was weak right now. So he'll be damned to stay this way. He'll have to bust his ass and train, drag Sabo along once he actually woke up and felt better. For now, it was just him.

Where to start? Ace was rather comfortable using his devil fruit abilities. Using a pipe was familiar, but it felt weird at the same time. That was out of the question then and Ace can't use armament haki, he's a logia. He would have to be solid for it to work.

Oh.

So he could just not turn a body part to flames. Wouldn't that work? He ate the Mera Mera no mi, so he isn't a person that could use fire. He's the embodiment of fire.

So if he wanted, he could just turn his entire body to flames. Wasn't there some marine that had the ability to use smoke? He remembered over hearing it when he infiltrated a marine base one time.

_Anything you can do I can do better._

Ace paced back and forth. Marco was a phoenix, while he can't _burn_ anyone with his flames, any attack that comes at him he can heal instantly. A flame was still a flame, so if it passed through him, couldn't Ace do the same? Of course he could. One quick encounter with bullets had tested that theory out but he never did try it again. He would have to test that out more. Though why stop at one body part, he was fire for gods sake! He can just completely transform into fire.

He was fire, so could he also chose who and who not to burn? That would be dangerous to test out so he'd have to stick with testing it on inanimate objects.

Alright, for now, he'd have to develop on his haki skills more. He knew he had conqueror haki but it was too difficult to grasp. He needed to learn how to use armament haki in his natural state and learn observation haki.

That just brought up another problem, he didn't know how to learn this shit. He was going to have to find someone to teach him.

Ahh, damn. Who to ask. Observation haki, he'd have to go with Izou. Armament haki, he would have to ask Sabo, but he'll have to wait on that. Conqueror's haki, he had to go to Pops for.

Too many damn things he has to learn, but it would all be worth it. This way, he could be stronger and he could finally protect the people he cared about.

Oh.

Maybe the library had something Ace could use. Books were helpful right? Sabo read a lot of books as a kid and he was really smart, look at where it got him now! Revolutionary Army! That was a plus. Hopefully the library had any books on fire he could use.

It was probably almost daybreak, and Ace at the moment couldn't sleep due to the recent events. So for now, he would just head to the library and search shit up.

He'd have to thank Makino a shit load for teaching him how to read. That would be embarrassing if everyone found out he couldn't for a long time until he had turned about fifteen. When that lady found out she was furious and determined to make both him and Luffy learn.

Ace trudged on out of his room, and headed toward the library, which was located near Haruta's division. The only time he had ever ventured to the library was when he had been trying to assassinate Pops. Other than that he never really went near there. Just not his type of place to be.

As Ace made his way there, he didn't notice that he attracted a lot of the pirates' attention when he walked his ass inside the library. Because it was something he _never_ did. At all. It was weird. Very weird.

It was abnormal.

"S-someone should get Commander Haruta…" someone whispered.

"Is he okay?" another whispered.

"I'll just…" another gestured and walked off to find Haruta.

Meanwhile, Ace stepped foot inside the spacious room. He whistled in awe at the amount of books in the room. He wondered where the hell they got these many books. There was a few chairs and a couch or two, along with two desks. There were two portholes that filtered light through the room.

Ace closed the door and came up to a book shelf, tilting his head to the side and started scanning the books. He _hoped_ to find something that would help him. Ace stopped and looked around the room.

"This is going to take a while." Ace just realized.

* * *

"How are they?" Marco asked one of the nurses that was in charge of taking care of the two. Raina and Jun and the almost all of the other nurses had went to sleep already. Marco had taken his sleep as well, waking up around the late afternoon.

"Sabo's fever finally went down, so he's perfectly alright. He's just sleeping for now. Thatch is doing alright also, so they should be waking up soon enough." The nurse replied Marco. The man smiled in relief upon hearing only good news so far. They seem to be completely out of danger now.

He glanced at Sabo. He was wrapped up in rolls of bandages, padded gauze, and an IV drip still connected. He then went over to Thatch and noticed something hilarious.

The nurses had put his hair down. The damn pompadour was in the way that Jun had ordered someone to wash all the damn gel or whatever he set his hair with. So now, someone had just loosely tied it up. Thatch was also wrapped up in bandages and padded with gauze also, and an IV in his arm.

"Ah, there you are Marco!" he heard Izou call out to him. Marco turned and saw Izou all done up and not a 'disaster' as he so later complained about. "I gotta show you something." He grinned and waved at him to come along.

"What's up?" Marco asked as they made their way to wherever Izou lead him to.

"Well, Haruta had showed me something amusing yet odd." He said, hiding a smile.

"This isn't a prank is it?" He asked immediately.

"No, I don't do pranks." He said flat out.

They came up to the entrance of the library where Haruta met them. He held up a finger, a gesture for him to be quiet and quietly opened the door. The sight had shocked him a bit.

Under a small pile of books, was Ace passed out asleep with what looked to be Marco's old reading glasses that he wears out of habit. He had lost them at some point and didn't know where he placed them.

"A few guys had freaked out when they saw him go in several hours ago. I don't know how long he had been reading and fell asleep though." Haruta whispered.

Marco quietly went in and crouched near the boy, picking up the book that was near his hand. Odd, he didn't know Ace was into science. The page he was on explained properties over _fire_. Marco blinked, then looked at all the other books. Some were just novels and others were informational books, another he managed to find a little over devil fruit. Though, all the subjects were over fire.

Was Ace doing research over his mera mera no mi? And since when did Ace need glasses?

Marco for sure was convinced that Ace was going to either A)Sulk, or B) be moody the entire day after the incident with Sabo and Thatch, but the boy just kept on surprising him. Marco let out a chuckle and grinned.

"Ace, yoi. Time to wake up." Marco nudged the boy with his hand. The hot head just kept on snoring away, rolling toward Marco.

" _Noo, Luffy, get your own damn meat_." Ace whined in his sleep. _"—can't have mine."_

Behind him, Marco could head Izou and Haruta stifling their laughter.

"Brat, wake up." Marco flicked Ace on his forehead. Ace just swatted at the offending hand. He moved a hand and scratched his belly. " _ACE."_ He said a little louder, hoping this time it woke him up. Unfortunately for Marco, Ace had, out of habit, had reached and yanked Marco down by the man's purple shirt and wrapped one arm and threw a leg around him, effectively stunned and pinned the man down.

" _Go back to sleep Lu, I'll get you some meat later_." Ace mumbled in his sleep. Marco at this point was irritated. He transformed into his phoenix form and was about a few seconds away from pecking at Ace's head until his natural heat from his fire had woken Ace up.

Ace blinked for a few sleepy moments, sight blurred, and saw a bird near him. And to Ace's natural instinct—

Haruta and Izou couldn't contain their laughter and fell over laughing. A few moments after Marco was ticked, sitting on the ground and glared at Ace as his flames healed the large bite wound on his neck. Ace had curled into himself as he cradled a large swollen bump on his head.

"Fucking _shit_." Ace hissed.

"Now are you awake, yoi?" the phoenix asked in annoyance.

" _Yes, Lu,_ I'm aw—" Ace caught himself before he finished his sentence. He shook his head, finally back in reality. "Sorry 'bout that." He rubbed his bump. Marco only sighed.

"Is there a reason why you're sleeping in the library, yoi?" Marco asked.

"The real question here is, why are you _in_ here in the first place?" Haruta asked. "It's surprising to see someone like you down here so I gotta know."

"Ah, I was just trying to figure some things out." Ace just shrugged. "I'll tell you guys when I figure it out. Oh, how're the guys doing?" Ace asked.

"Sabo's fever finally went down. Other than that they seem alright, just sleeping." Izou replied for Marco.

"That's good to hear."

"Great, now c'mon. One of the cooks wants to cook some sea king." Haruta said with a grin. "Vista and a few others are having a contest on who gets the biggest one." Ace grinned.

"Can't beat me at my own game." Ace said as he got up.

* * *

Raina tossed the paper in the air and growled in confusion. She was so frustrated!

She was glad that Izou happened to have just the universal blood type they need for Sabo. So upon the discovery that _nobody_ knew what the kid's blood type was urged her to take some blood samples and run them through her machines and figure which he was. Simple enough procedure.

_Ha._

The damn knife that Teach had stabbed Sabo with was clean. And by clean, she meant it wasn't laced with any poison or whatsoever. Thatch was okay, fine even. Just boo-booed his lung a bit and stitches, but the kid had gotten sick, and Thatch didn't. Sabo would've been the same as the fourth commander, but he needed several stitches. Then when she ran the blood test for Sabo, it came back weird.

His white blood cells were incredibly low. It was amazing he could last this long on the ship in a state like that. He had only gotten sick _after_ he was attacked and the fact that his fever went away was incredibly fast.

She took some blood samples a few hours ago and compared it to the ones she just received now, his white blood cells had risen back to a normal count. Though several hours prior to that it had decreased, though not as low as the second results.

What the fuck?

"Ahhh, this is giving me an aneurism." Raina whined. Her door opened and in came Jun, bags under eyes with more papers tucked under her arm.

"Is it Sabo again?" Jun asked.

"Yes! How the fuck is he alive right now is the problem. His white blood cell count was almost nonexistent the second batch of the results. The third time it went completely back to normal and I just found this out _now._ "

"Shouldn't he be getting' sick from left ta right?" Jun leaned against the door. "He's been with us for a while now."

"Exactly!" she plopped on her bed. "I should've made a file for him right away and did blood tests and the other stupid normal procedures, but I didn't. I could've had time to figure what's going on with him and not find out last minute."

"Well now we found out, so what now?" Jun slid down to sit on the floor.

"Now I need to talk to Sabo about his parents and if they had any sickness that he's aware of, but I don't know when he'll wake up."

"Then let's go ask the flame brain then." Jun offered. "They grew up with each other didn't they?" Raina got up from their bed quickly, slipping on shoes and stepped over a lot of paperwork.

"Dammit, I forgot about that, c'mon!" she tugged the door open and ran out.

"They should be up on deck. I heard they were havin' some competition. I think to liven things up a bit again." Jun said. Both women ran down the hall, dodging people from left to right and made their way up deck, where they could hear some cheering going on.

As they emerged up to the deck, they spotted a few of the commanders, one of them being Ace. They were busy fishing out Sea Kings and comparing sizes, to which Raina rolled her eyes at and Jun just smacked her forehead with her palm.

_Boys. They always compared sizes._

"Any of you boys compensatin' for somethin'?" Jun commented as she saw them gloating at which sea king head was bigger. The men stopped and looked up at them, then down at the sea kings and flushed, dropping them immediately.

"Uh—"

"Well—"

"No?"

"Idiots." Raina shook her head. She looked up and found Ace. "Ace, get over here!" she ushered him to come to her, though by the furious and annoyed look on her face, the boy shook his head furiously and hid behind Vista.

"I didn't do shit." Ace immediately said.

"What?!" Raina asked annoyed. "Want to run that by me again?!"

"It's nothing serious!" Ace held his hands up in defense.

"Wha—what?!" she shouted.

"I was just trying something out! I'm perfectly okay!" Ace said, and made everyone look at him in confusion.

"Uh, does anyone mind explaining to me what's going on?" Vista asked as he was incredibly confused.

"Ahh." Ace rubbed the back of his head as everyone looked at him.

"This ain't about Sabo is it?" Jun asked. Ace was confused.

"No? Wait—what's wrong with Sabo?" Ace asked immediately asked. Jun just waved him off.

"We'll talk about that in a bit. Now what did you do?" she asked. Ace just sighed.

"I was just figuring things out with my mera mera no mi. Like I said, no big deal."

"Care to enlighten us what you were figuring out, yoi?" Marco asked, curious to what Ace was doing. Ace sighed, sensing they weren't going to drop this.

"Well, stating the obvious here, you're a phoenix, a flaming bird, right?" Marco and the others nodded. "Right. Fire. So I thought that maybe if you can use your flames to completely heal, maybe I can heal myself."

"Well on the count that you're a logia user, most logias can easily do that." Haruta said.

"Yeah, but not really. They know it's coming and if they're fast enough they can dodge it all together with whatever element they have. Or if you manage to find that element's weakness. It's just all in control. So I can already pass bullets through me, found that out when I was with my Spade crew. I just wondered if I could _heal_ myself." Ace shrugged. "So I just—" Ace grabbed his knife he carried out of its sheath on the side and cut his forearm open.

"Oi—Ace!" a few called out, then shut up as they watched in awe. They saw Ace's arm suddenly in flames, a slight sizzling sound was heard and then the flames reduced, leaving nothing but a very faint scar.

"It just leaves a teeny tiny scar though."

"And how many times you tried this until it worked?" Raina asked, full of annoyance at him trying something so dangerous.

"Well, just several hours? I don't know I kinda fell asleep in the library." Ace said.

Marco shook his head. "I'm a phoenix I don't just simply _heal_ only, but I can regenerate at a fast rate also. Healing is fixing some part of your body that's been damaged. Regenerating is completely replacing the entire thing all together, yoi. Well, in my own terms. Like if my ear got cut off, or fingers I can regenerate those and be completely new again. If I had a stab wound, I can heal that. I can replace organs too. It's too tricky to explain." Marco pointed at Ace's new scar. "What you just did was that you literally burned your wound closed and since nothing can really burn you, the only mark that was left is the scar from the _knife_."

"Ah, that makes much more sense." Ace held his arm up and observed his scar. Marco then suddenly ruffled his hair.

"At least you learned something new, yoi." Marco smirked at him. Ace grinned at the praise.

"Ah, wait you said something about Sabo?" Ace remembered.

"I was wondering if you happen to know Sabo's parents. Or anything about his family to be honest." Raina asked, then noticed the immediate frown on the boy.

Ace just couldn't help but sneer at the mention of his _parents_. "He doesn't have any."

"We're only askin' cause Sabo's blood is weird. If there was anything that you or Sabo know that either of his parent's had, it would help us help him." Jun explained. "We frankly don't give two shits about them otherwise." Ace just stared at them for a moment.

"Do you need to know now?" Ace asked.

"Sabo's safe for now, and I would like to, but if you don't want to tell me..." Raina sighed.

"It's not that, it's just not my place to tell you. If he didn't really care then I would but other than that you gotta hear it from him if he's willing." Ace shrugged.

"Ah, fine, fine. Have it your way." Raina just sighed and went back below deck. Jun shrugged also and went back with her.

As the women left, everyone else stared at Ace.

"So, what _can_ you do now?" Izou asked.

"Still figuring that out." Ace grinned. "So you guys gonna have to wait on that."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My own headcannon is that Ace and Luffy never learned how to read until Ace was about 15 and Luffy 12. Makino had discovered this and was determined to teach them how to read, and succeeded, along with Ace's mannerism classes. This was probably when Ace found out he needed some reading glasses.
> 
> Another HC, Marco used to have bad eyesight until he ate his devil's fruit. The fruit healed his damaged eyesight. He sometimes wears them out of old habit but lost them somewhere (Thatch hid them).
> 
> Also, as i'm trying to get some medical facts right, this IS one piece and the laws of physiques don't count. LOL So while i'm keeping true to whatever medical info i put in, i gotta stay true to it still being one piece and Luffy can light fire underwater. Sooooo, yeah. Twisting stuff here and there.


	10. Chapter 10

A sudden groan startled a nurse. She quickly turned around and saw that the fourth division commander was waking up. Smiling, she quickly went to get Raina in her bedroom.

"Raina, Thatch is waking up." She reported. She then heard some scuffling and a thud until the door opened with a jerk.

"About damn time!" Jun said as she made her way to Thatch. Raina was still in their room, looking over more papers and books.

"Go tell Pops." Raina said without looking up. The nurse only nodded and went along. Raina sighed and made her way to Thatch.

"And how are you feeling?" Raina asked.

"I feel like shit." Thatch groaned out. "What happened?"

"Teach happened. He tried to kill you and Sabo for the devil's fruit you found. Apparently that was the one he had been tryin' to find for decades." Jun explained.

"… _what?"_ Thatch was shocked. "—but why? Why betray us?"

"Because he wanted to be the pirate king." Raina said. "Now, questions later. How are you feeling?"

"Hurts to breathe a bit, hurts to move." Thatch said.

"It should be on account that you had a nasty stab wound on the back. That's gonna leave a beautiful scar." Jun patted him gently. "You also got your lungs nicked, though that should heal on it's own."

"Now we gotta wait for blondie over there to wake up." Raina said, pointing a thumb at Sabo's direction. Thatch glanced over and what he saw made him feel incredibly guilty. The kid was wrapped up in too many bandages and still hooked up to an IV. The kid looked a bit pale. "He went up against Teach. It was thanks to him that you're alive right now." She said when she noticed Thatch looking over to him.

"Yeah, he scared the crap outta me when he nearly crack the entire deck with that move of his. A few commanders are fussing over fixing it now." Jun said.

"And Teach?" he was almost too afraid to ask.

"Pop's took care of him." Jun answered him. "Now relax and stop trying to wiggle around so much. You're not getting out of bed anytime soon."

"Aw c'mon. I just came back from a mission and now I'm confined to bed rest?" Thatch whined. The women smirked, relieved to hear him in great spirits. "And my precious hair. Look how sad it is to being confined to bed rest."

"Gurarararara! Glad to hear you up, son." Whitebeard grinned as he came in the room. "How are you feeling, son?"

"Eh, pain here and there. I just wanna fix my hair and get out of here." Thatch sighed. Whitebeard nodded, then frowned.

"I apologize son, for putting you in such danger like that." The man said. The ladies and Thatch was startled by this.

"Wai—no it's not your fault!" Thatch winced in pain when he wanted to sit up. "It's nobody's fault but Teach's. He duped us all. We never realized how dangerous he was."

"Nonetheless, I am still your captain, your father and I failed to protect you. Will you forgive me?"

"Of course I forgive you, Pops. I could never blame you." Thatch smiled at the man, who nodded and grinned back.

"Now, listen to what the ladies tell you. If someone tells me you're doing something you are not supposed to I will put a temporary ban on your hair products except shampoo." Whitebeard eyed the commander, who gaped at him.

"Wha—that's not fair! It's too boring here!" Thatch whined.

"Wow, the first thing he does is whine." Haruta smirked.

"It's about time, yoi. It's been almost two days." Marco came in with a smile on his face.

"Two days? It feels longer than that." Thatch squirmed around on bed, and instantly regretted that. He grunted in pain as he pulled on a few stitches.

"Quit actin' like a worm!" Jun flicked his forehead. "Now you know the rules. Stay in here for another day or two, then you're out but DO NOT do anythin' strenuous. Got it?"

"Ugh, yeah yeah I got it." Thatch reluctantly agreed.

"That means you can't do shit in the kitchen. No cookin at all. Actually just stay out." Jun said in the end.

" _Whaaaat?_!" Thatch exclaimed.

Whitebeard chuckled, glad to see his son well. He turned and observed the other brat, Sabo. He frowned when he noticed the kid was pale.

"And the brat?" he asked. Something was telling him that something was wrong with the kid. Raina and Jun quieted down when they heard him ask.

"Well—" Raina started before the doors burst open, revealing a rather charred Izou and Ace. The crossdresser was dragging the kid by his ear. Izou was beyond annoyed and irritated.

"I said I was sorry!" griped Ace as he winced as the man tugged harder.

"Oh, Thatch you're up. That's great." Izou nodded at the cook.

"So what's up?" Thatch nodded at the two, wanting an explanation.

"Explain." Izou dragged Ace in front of him and sat the kid down. He crossed his arms and damn he was beyond mad.

"I'm just—" Ace started.

"—figuring things out." Marco, Izou, Haruta and Ace said in unison.

"Like I said, I didn't mean to." Ace looked away, clearly pouting. He mumbled something under his breath.

" _What was that?"_ Izou hissed.

"It's not my fault you're so flammable." He mumbled. He froze and sweated nervously when he heard a click and the feel of cold steel against the back of his head. "I mean I'm so sorry, I'll buy you another kimono." Izou nodded.

"Care to explain what the hell happened this time, yoi." Marco shook his head at Ace.

"I was just testing things out with my fire. There was complications." Ace said.

"That's not an explanation, yoi." Marco said. Jun had then suddenly stepped up and crouched down to Ace's eyelevel as if she were addressing a child.

"Now Ace, it's perfectly normal for a person to lose control of their abilities if they succumb to too much stress or too emotional. There's nothing to be ashamed of that." She said softly.

"Wha—I'm not _emotional."_ Though the look everyone gave him said they didn't buy that. "I was just seeing if I can make it so that I won't catch things on fire."

"Bro, you're fire." Thatch said as if Ace was stupid.

"I know that—" Ace blinked for a few moments as he went silent. The scene before him finally registered in his head. "Thatch! You're up!" Ace smiled in relief.

"You just now noticed?" Thatch sighed. "Seriously, what've you been up to? Pulling pranks in my place?" He asked with a sly grin on his face.

"I was trying to see if I can't catch things on fire even if I'm touching it with fire." Ace shrugged. "I only tested it on a tiny corner of Izou's kimono and I hadn't thought he was _that_ flammable."

"So you did intentionally light me on fire." Izou's dark aura seeped out.

"I said I was sorry!" Ace crossed his arms.

"Ace, son, as much as it is admirable that you are wanting to learn more about your powers, what had brought the decision to now?" Pop's asked him. Ace scratched the back of his head and glanced at Sabo.

"I just want to get stronger, that's all." Ace's stare at his brother didn't go unnoticed by the other.

"I assume you finally want to learn more about haki then?" Whitebeard asked. Ace was surprised by the man.

"Wait—how did you—" Ace stared at the man incredulously.

"I can teach you how to use your conquerors haki." Whitebeard offered. The grand smile that Ace gave had caused a lot of wide eyes to stare in awe. Damn, that kid can give a stupendously happy smile.

"Really?!" Ace asked in delight.

"Yes, but they have to clear you first." Whitebeard pointed at Raina and Jun, who suddenly smirked devilishly. Ace swore he spotted flames from behind them for a moment there.

"Uh—" Ace stared at them. Thatch snickered from his bed.

"Good luck with that, Ace." Thatch laughed at him.

Whitebeard had turned his focus back on his daughter and nodded at her to continue.

"Honestly I don't have a clue what's going on with Sabo." Raina drooped her shoulders in defeat. "While his red blood cells are increasing like it should, his white blood cells fluctuate every time we took a blood sample." Raina noticed the completely lost face on Ace.

"Red blood cells supply oxygen in ya, White blood cells make it so that you won't go getting sick too easily." Jun broke it down for Ace, who nodded. "Problem with Sabo is that his white blood cell count aren't what it should be. The second time we took a sample it was almost non-existent."

"So what you're saying he's sick with something?" Izou suggested.

"Maybe, either he's been affected with something while with us, from Teach, or he's had this problem for a long time. Can't find out until he wakes up." Raina answered. She glanced at Ace. The boy was obviously trying not to burst into flames at the near mention of Teach.

"He really hates his parents. So trying to find any help from them are close to none." Ace said as he looked at Sabo. "I don't remember him being sick with anything when we were kids though."

"Can you tell us where he's from?" Raina asked, hoping he could at least answer her that.

"East Blue. We're all born on Dawn Island that much I can tell you. Grew up in the mountains, normal kid stuff." Ace shrugged nonchalantly.

_That's not normal kid stuff…_ everyone thought.

* * *

Raina and several other nurses finally went through all the paperwork of every single whitebeard crew, including the ones not on the main ship. They had contacted the other ship's doctors via the den den mushi and everyone had came up with a dud.

"When they say it's rare, they meant it." Thatch commented. The man laid in his bed as he observed them going through various paper works. Apparently they needed to find someone of S negative type blood because they either had none to begin with or they were out. Thatch has a feeling nobody had that, besides Izou.

Thank god for Izou.

Thatch also learned that Sabo had something weird going on with his blood. Something about fluctuating white blood cells. His normal red blood cells steadily increased, but nonetheless the boy will be out for a while.

"Well, only way is to either hopefully ask for donations to any of our territories, ask Izou to donate more but I really would like to avoid that, or wait until the other blood results for his blood type come back. I think that will take another day or so. Our machine for that is pretty old." Raina spouted off.

"We also have another problem since Izou is S negative. If he's in danger in the future we have no supply of his blood at all." Jun realized. "Ah, shit I didn't see this sooner."

"If donations won't work just do it the pirate way." Thatch offered. "We ain't all saints."

"You mean act like leeches and take people's blood?" Raina said.

"Well, I was thinking more along the lines of vampires. And I know a few black markets to find just what we're looking for." Thatch shrugged his shoulders and winced.

"Let's just see if we can find donations first. We can talk about that later." Raina sighed. "Why are all these problems happening now?"

Jun just chuckled. "That's all those—" she stopped herself before completing her sentence. She surprised herself and glanced over at Sabo. She shook her head and got up. "I'm going for a walk." Raina just waved her off as she flopped on her back.

"I have an idea." Thatch said suddenly. Raina groaned out loud. "Hey, it's a good one!"

"What is it?" she looked at him tiredly. Thatch pulled out a book over devil's fruit seemingly out of nowhere. "Asked Haruta for this a while ago. Now, I did a little reading."

"Yeah, and?" Raina wondered where he was going with that.

"Other than the fact that this is a scary ass fruit, thank god Teach didn't get his hands on this, it can 'nullify' other devil powers of any type." Thatch explained. "If it has nullification properties—"

"—it can probably make it so that Sabo won't have any problems and get sick." Raina's eyes widened at this.

"Exactly! Devil fruits are weird enough giving people powers, but a lot have an uncanny ability to make the person well again in their own ways." Thatch smiled. "I really like swimming and frankly the kid earned this damn fruit saving my life." He sighed.

"Now we just wait." Raina concluded, both looking at Sabo as he slept away.

* * *

Meanwhile in Baltigo, an angry young woman stomped through the halls.

Of all the nerve! They were in the middle of something huge and he had the nerve to just hang up like that! And he hadn't contacted back at all.

"HACK!" she shouted out towards the man. "It's been days! That jerk knows how important this mission is, the fact that we have to bump it up a few months is bad enough. He's still not replying back yet!" The yellow fishman nearly jumped when Koala had barged into the room.

"Sabo can be like this, but he knows how dire the situation is now. We should believe in him." Hack tried to calm her down.

"That's the problem! Something isn't right!" she ripped the hat off her head and threw it at the wall. Hack sighed, going over and picking the hat back up.

"He's with the Whitebeards, he should be safe enough." Hack said.

"Koala is right. Our mission right now is too important to go on without him. We can handle things here. I suggest you and Koala take a few others travel and meet up with those pirates. By the time you guys rendezvous with Sabo be prepared to start the mission." Dragon said when he walked in the door. "Another ship will rendezvous with you at the meeting point." Koala and Hack nodded.

"Shall we leave immediately?" Koala asked. The man nodded before leaving. "Hack, can you get some of Sabo's extra clothes? He may need a fresh pair when we meet up with him." The fishman nodded at Koala before taking his leave.

Koala just sighed. She hoped that whatever he was doing he was alright. The next mission was a dangerous one, and they _need_ him on this one. For now, she has to be prepared for the next few months. She didn't know how long this mission will take.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Gasp* The revolutionaries make an appearance!
> 
> Also, don't mind me changing the summary for the story. I'm shit at them and trying to get one to match what i'm going for in the story, LOL. Hope that doesn't annoy anyone. Still read and enjoy! And don't worry, Sabo's waking soon!


	11. Chapter 11

Five days since the betrayal of Teach was when Sabo finally woke up. Needless to say it was in the middle of about four pirate ships trying to raid the Whitebeard pirates.

'Trying' was the keyword here.

They could handle it, no problem. It was just rather annoying because everyone was everywhere and they eventually got below deck. Some had been smart and avoided the navigation room where Whitebeard was. The man though, just grinned at the cheekiness of the pesky pirates. It was amusing at first but then a handful of them had managed to get below deck.

_It was even more amusing_ when he knew he would eventually come across the medical room.

He knew his daughters weren't defenseless. Though his sons' protectiveness was admiring, the ladies could just as well handle themselves when trouble comes. How long had it been since he had seen them fight? Too long.

"Argh!" one of the pirates gasped in pain as his nose broke in three different places by _a damn nurse_. The small woman only hopped from one foot to another before leaping into the air and roundhouse kicking him in the head.

Several other nurses perfectly defended themselves without breaking a sweat. They prevented anyone else getting into the medical room where Thatch and Sabo were resting.

"Fucking bitch!" one swiped at a nurse furiously, though he missed and received a punch in the gut.

"What the hell is this chick pumping?!" another yelled out. "I thought you said we could get in and out easy enough with the diversion!"

"Shut it! I know he's in there! Move it bitch!" a pirate had barreled over a few nurses as another pirate managed to get his way past them and into the infirmary, where the person he was paid to get was at.

Lying in bed, easy for the take. The man grinned.

"Time to come home, noble brat. Daddy dearest wants you bac—" the man suddenly shouted in pain as he flew back out of the infirmary and lodged into a wall.

"Don't mess with my patients, hun'." Jun said as he pulled her fist back.

"Damn pirates, making a mess out of everything." Raina complained as she stood in front of Thatch and Sabo.

"Dammit!" one of the pirates on the floor groaned in pain. "He said this would be easy!"

"Hey dickhead, who was the one that sent you 'ere." Jun had grabbed onto a handful of the pirates' shirt and glared into his eyes.

"Why the _fuck—"_ he yelled in pain as Jun twisted his arm around.

"Move one inch and I'll tear your muscles and dislocate your arm. Trust me, it hurts worse than breaking." Jun promised.

"Now answer her question, who sent you here?" Raina asked, arms crossed.

"T-this guy we came across! Had a huge ship, promised us a lotta things in exchange we come with him to raid the whitebeard's if we just grab a noble that's hiding here!" he said quickly. He pointed to the blonde. "He just said a blonde brat, scar on his eye, tan skin, blue clothes!" Jun started pulling on his arm.

"Who was it!" she demanded.

"B-BlueJam!" he quickly said. "He was paid a shit ton if we just brought a noble's bratty son back to him!" Jun kicked him in the head and the man fell over unconscious.

"Tie him up with the others! Someone should be coming down to check on us soon. Meanwhile, I just found out what may be wrong with Sabo." Raina turned to him and grinned, only to be stunned. The bed was empty. "Wha?! Sabo!" she shouted in shock. "Jun, Sabo's gone!" Raina said. The other woman jerked her head up and quickly looked.

"Dammit! Take care of things down here, we'll head on up!" Jun said to the other nurses, who nodded. "Use whatever force necessary, protect Thatch." Jun waved for Raina to come along. Both women ran down the halls, knocking over several pirates unconscious that weren't theirs and barreled their way up into the chaos on deck.

As the finally made their way there, they looked around frantically until a man had bellowed out from the figurehead of Moby Dick.

"Hehehe! You've managed to hide yourself among some crew, brat!" the large man grinned. "How long has it been Ace? Too long to count." Raina could only describe the large tanned man as permantly burned everywhere, his hair was gone, and the man's left eye was most likely melted completely shut.

"Who the fuck are you?" Ace frowned, trying to remember the man. The burned man only frowned and started to shake in anger.

"Ke—kehahahahahaha! I was the one that enjoyed making my men beat the living shit outta your snot nosed brother when he refused to tell me where you took my money!" he glared menacingly at Ace, grinning when he noticed Ace finally recognizing him.

"Ace, yoi what's going on?" Marco asked.

"BlueJam?!" Ace gasped. "I thought you burned to hell in Grey Terminal!" Ace's eyes turned feral. "What the hell do you want now! It's been over a decade!"

"I still have a job to complete. Daddy dearest wants his noble bratty son back." He grinned.

"Back off, or I'll make sure to burn you completely this time." Ace flared his flames.

"Sorry, but that's not happening, yoi." Marco grinned like the devil as countless other whitebeard pirates backed him up on that.

BlueJam only smirked as he pointed at the cracks along the deck. "I'm afraid it has." Suddenly, several gasps and confusion rang out when disgusting, thick slime oozed out from their deck and quickly formed next to the burnt man.

As the slime began to solidify, BlueJam took the opportunity to introduce whoever it was.

"This is a crewmate of mine, Caribou. He happened to have come across the Numa Numa no Mi. He becomes a swamp human, and one of his abilities allows him infinite space to contain just about anything. A human, no problem." The man finally formed back, tongue out as he grinned from ear to ear. His entire posture slouched as he let his stomach turn into his swamp form and Sabo slowly came out from the man, slowly dropping onto the deck below the devil user. Ace stared in horror as he saw his brother still unconscious, IV ripped out and laying on his stomach completely helpless on deck.

"SABO!" Ace shouted. He wanted to charge over until BlueJam held a sword and onto Sabo's neck. This not only pissed Ace off, but Marco and the others as well.

"Now, now. I believe I was ordered to bring him back alive, but the man never said back in one piece. He still has a princess to marry I believe." He chuckled darkly.

"You got some nerve coming onto my ship and thinking you can just take what you want and leave, kid. Especially if you happen to take one of mine." Whitebeard suddenly came from nowhere as he glared down at the man. His presence was so imposing and threatening.

Caribou at least had some senses and was beyond afraid, BlueJam was as well but he forced his poker face and calmed down.

"I still have some unfinished business with these brats, though it's _so_ unfortunate that the other crybaby of a brat is gone, huh?" BlueJam laughed out as he mocked Ace.

That comment.

That fucking comment was what broke Ace's cool.

The fire fist had burst out in his flames, too angry to notice his flames changing color from his usual Red-orange to a yellow-white. The image of Luffy's crying face burned into his mind.

" _Don't you ever call my baby brother that."_ Ace hissed darkly at the man. "You're going to be sorry that you ever came on this ship."

BlueJam only grinned as he moved to hurt the noble brat when he discovered he couldn't move his sword at all. No matter how much he pulled, it didn't budge one bit. "What the—" he glanced down noticed a pair of fingers clutching onto his blade. "Shitty brat—" the man choked in pain as one hand shattered the sword into pieces and the other had gripped around his throat.

_He didn't even see the kid move_. The kid was practically perched onto his chest as the hand around his throat tightened. He looked down at the kid to see his face look at him with an intense glare.

" _Don't ever talk about our brother like that."_ He gasped out. "I would go easy on you in a time like this, but you were one of the things that ruined my childhood." He put on a fake smile. "ACE!" he shouted out as Sabo flipped in the air. Sabo had brought his haki covered leg down on the man as Ace charged forward and shot the man with a Hikan to the chest, effectively burning a hole in the man's chest. BlueJam's eyes rolled back as the man toppled back and over the rails, crashing into the water and sinking down to the bottom of the ocean.

Sabo gracefully landed on his feet, only to stumble a little as his foot was tugged from under him by Caribou. Ace was also surprised when Caribou latched onto him as well, intended on taking him along. The man tried to lurch back onto a different ship until Sabo was suddenly held in a very large hand very gently along with Ace. Sabo didn't have to look to know it was Whitebeard, but it surely surprised him.

"Get off my ship." Whitebeard demanded as he swung his bisento and swatted the man away with such a strong force he crashed into the other ship.

"C-captain!" the men from Caribou's ship shouted. "Dammit, I knew this was a bad idea! Let's get outta here!" someone shouted and navigated away from the Moby Dick. Several others left on deck scrambled off and swam away to their ships.

"Good riddance." Jozu said, earning nods from others after his remark.

"Sabo!" Raina shouted as she finally came up to Pops. The man lowered his hand and carefully put them down. Sabo would've fallen over if Ace hadn't been there to catch him.

"Sorry, a little lightheaded." Sabo sat down as he caught his breathing. "Glad he's finally gone." Sabo chuckled, high fiving Ace and winced in pain. "What happened while I was out?"

"Well, Mister, you managed to lose a lot of blood, Izou had to donate his, you did a number on our deck, Thatch is okay, you're still sick." Raina listed off.

"Wai—Thatch! What happened to Teach?" Sabo remembered what happened.

"Well, after Pop's threw him off the ship, he landed in the water and he got eaten by a gigantic sea king." Ace told his brother. Sabo gaped, then laughed at the man's misfortune.

"And the fruit? He didn't get it did he?" Sabo asked.

"Don't worry brat, its safe." Whitebeard said. "Now do either of you two want to explain to me who those pirates were?" Ace and Sabo looked at each other and shrugged.

"A pirate from when we were kids, around ten." Ace went on to explain their encounter with BlueJam, a few ticked when they glossed over Pochemy and him kidnapping and beating Luffy. Glad he was dead. Sabo took over as Ace stopped when he reached the part about Grey Terminal burning.

Sabo was quiet for a moment, looking hard at the ground before working up the nerve to speak the truth. "I was a noble and ran away because I hated living there." Sabo clenched his fists. "My _dad_ wanted me to marry a princess was what caused me to run from them. Also found out he adopted some other kid to replace me just in case I 'failed.'" Sabo quoted with his fingers as he rolled his eyes.

"How did they know you were here?" Izou wondered.

"That's what I wanted to know." Sabo looked up to Whitebeard and rubbed the back of his head, again wincing in pain. "I'm sorry if those two made a mess of things because of me." The blonde received a hit to the head by Ace, earning a huge swollen bump. " _Shit."_ He hissed as he cradled his bump.

"Idiot! Like hell it's your fault! And I know what you're thinking so quit thinking about it." Ace glared at him dead in the eyes. Sabo faltered. "If it hadn't been for you, Thatch would be dead and Teach would've gotten away with the yami yami no mi." he ruffled his brother's hair. "If anything we should be thanking you." He grinned. Sabo flushed as everyone grinned at him and shouted a thank you for saving their brother.

"Ace is right. If you had not been here, I would've lost a son and the world would've gained a dangerous man running around with that god awful fruit. So thank you for saving him." Whitebeard grinned down at Sabo.

Sabo smiled in relief that nobody really cared about his former family. He winced as he felt a strong grip on his arm. It was one of the doctors.

"You and I have a lot to talk about." Raina said as she smiled at him. "You've been out for a bit so you need to—" Sabo cursed out in realization.

"How many days was I out?!" Sabo asked immediately. He reached into his pocket, not finding his little den den mushi. "Ah, shit." Sabo stopped, then sighed. "Ah, it should be fine."

Ace didn't believe his words when the blonde started sweating bullets.

* * *

 

Sabo had reluctantly agreed to go back to the infirmary per Ace's great persuasion. His method had been if Sabo didn't go there now Ace was going to use force and princess carry him down there slowly.

Sabo had been surprised that the nurses handled themselves well. When they got down there, he spotted a huddle of beaten, tied up pirates and a gang of nurses glaring down at them if they moved an inch.

Thatch had been awake when they came back into the large room, his face was pensive as he watched them walk in.

"I had a weird dream where this goop ate you." Thatch said to Sabo, who chuckled a bit.

"Well, you're not wrong." He replied to the cook. "I'm glad you're doing a lot better. I got to say though, I'm sure when we both get out of here we'll likely be watched with every move we take." Sabo chuckled as he looked at his hovering brother, who only raised an eyebrow at the comment.

"Pfft, don't I know it." Thatch said. The cook observed the blonde, who had relaxed a little bit and winced here and there. "You'll get used to that." He snickered at the blonde. "Anyways, you, sir, are terrible." He sniffed at him. The comment made Sabo confused, as well as Ace. "The days that you've been out, you sure made Raina freak out worse than Pop's drinking habits."

"I still have no clue what you're talking about." Sabo tilted his head.

"Your blood, bro. Something freaky about it. What is your blood type by the way, so we know just in case."

"Beats me, I don't know. It never really occurred to me that I needed to know that knowledge. I've been fine til now so it should be okay." He shrugged his shoulders.

" _That's_ where you are wrong, kid." Jun walked in with Raina.

"You, _brat_ , need to explain some shit to me." Raina glared at Sabo. "I haven't gotten any sleep this past week. You lost so much blood that you had to have a transfusion, even with that it wasn't enough. I had to slip you into an induced coma to let you sleep and heal." Raina stomped over to Sabo, who scrambled up onto his bed as he tried to inch away from the angry lady. "Now, you're going to answer my questions as I build up a file for you, _alright?"_ she gritted out, her face inches away from his.

"Uh, right." Was all Sabo could utter out. Ace snickered at him nearby and earned an elbow to the gut.

Raina put on an instant smile. She held a pen up to her clipboard. "Now then, what's your blood type?"

"Pfft," Sabo scoffed, upon remembering his father's haughty attitude in a memory of his childhood, "Mom was XF, Dad was S, so X or F I suppose." Sabo shrugged.

"So you don't know what your blood type is exactly?" Raina asked him.

"Not really, does it matter? I can just take S negative can't I?" Sabo asked her.

"On account that there is only one person in the entire Whitebeard crew that is S negative, being our lovely Commander Izou, that's unlikely." Jun shook her head. "It brings up another problem…well maybe a problem for you but since you don't really care it doesn't matter." She shrugged as she tugged out a piece of paper and handed it to him.

Sabo took the paper and gave it a glance over and froze. He stopped breathing for a moment and shook it off the second after. "Huh…well that explains things a lot better…" Sabo mumbled as he stared at the words on the paper.

"I'm lost." Ace stuck his head next to Sabo's and read the paper.

"Ace, my mom's blood type is XF, my dad's is S. If they had a child, it would have to fall under X or F." Sabo explained to his brother, who nodded. "Ace, my blood type is XF." Ace didn't understand. Sabo sighed and grumbled that Ace should pick up a science book or two. "It means that _that_ man in Goa that I called my father, is not _my_ father." Sabo crumbled the paper and tossed it behind him somewhere. "I'm not _his_ son."

"Does it really matter though?" Ace crossed his arms as he cocked an eyebrow at him, hoping Sabo would get he was saying. Which he had.

"Honestly not really. It explains why the shittyness from my parents though. I just wondered who my real dad could be." Sabo stroked his chin.

"Well, since the laundry is aired out. That wasn't the problem I was trying to get to." Raina said. "Your biological father could either be a noble, or my rather farfetched idea a royalty." Ace and Sabo gave her amusing looks.

Jun shook her head and sighed. "You dolts. Kid, your white blood cells have been actin up. If they're this low than it should be you gonna be getting sick a lot in the future. More headaches, fevers, etc. The reason why Raina threw out the idea is that in your genes, a lot of signs of inbreeding could be seen. That act is common between nobles and Royalty to keep their 'pure' blood running."

"But you may not necessarily be the child of inbreeding. I'm thinking he was and you received a lot of genetic problems from him. People born of inbreeding don't have a long life, so chances are he's not around anymore." Raina explained to him. "Your mom kept it a deep secret for a reason, have it be of shame or something else."

"So will he be okay?" Ace asked the two.

"…now that I think about it, Ivan gave me a lot of pills to take that was supposed to keep me healthy…so they probably knew what was going on and just never told me?" Sabo said to himself. "So If I just contacted Ivan, I should be okay."

"He'll be takin those pills the rest of his life, unless he takes the alternative." Jun smirked at him. Thatch and Raina as well.

"We'll get to that tomorrow morning during our Commander meeting that you'll be going to." Thatch smiled at him.

Even at the word 'meeting' Sabo frowned greatly, nearly disgusted by it. He'd much rather train or do something else than sit or stand there for hours trying to listen on during a meeting. Sabo sighed deep from his gut to show off his enthusiasm for tomorrow morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  To save ya'll time, here's the blood type equivalents:
> 
> A = X; B = F; O = S; AB = XF
> 
> Then theres the matter of RH+ and RH- but honestly I still need to do some more research on that cause I wanna know wtf that is.
> 
> Also I made a whole damn conversion chart from OUR parental to child blood type to One Piece's blood types just cause.
> 
> Yes, BlueJam. It was never clarified, only assumptions that he died in the Grey Terminal fire. Pochemy is in fact dead so no worries there.
> 
> Yes, Teach got his fat ass eaten by a gigantic Sea King. Bye bye, dickhead.
> 
> And the ladies on board know how to kick ass. The boys are just overprotective and want to handle the fighting because they're gentlemen that way. That and they want to hog the fight to themselves.


	12. Chapter 12

Whitebeard had decided to stay on an inhabited Island while Fossa, Blamenco and a few other commanders worked on repairing the deck, to which Sabo was greatly sorry for damaging.

Thatch was doing very well, his healing time had made Sabo somewhat jealous because he was still recovering from his stab wound and every time he slipped out of the infirmary to walk around, someone, mainly the commanders, would get onto him and make him go back and rest. Sabo had enough sleeping. He apparently had five days of that. He was bored. Thatch was lucky enough to leave but for some reason he could even though he could walk around just fine.

Good lord was he being coddled? Is this what this was? They acted like he was going to fall over any minute and it was grating on his nerves. He still took his daily medication thanks to Ivan, though he noticed he was running out. Soon.

So that call with Ivan would have to happen soon. Which he sort of dreaded. If the man came here on his ship, then Sabo would be force to go down into his infirmary/lab, to which had…dress codes. He was over beyond grateful that the Whitebeard didn't have any of that sort.

But if Ivankov was supplying you with something very helpful, abiding by only one of his requests had to be done. Apparently this was normal but none of the other guys talk about it. The only person that does what he wants was Dragon, to which Ivankov respects and won't ask of.

Ahhh, god. When in doubt, don't give a flying fuck. If Izou chose to comfortably wear what he wore, then Sabo should have no problem with wearing a pink gown. He worn similar things when he had his missions.

It made the pink gown almost innocent.

And that was how Ace found him. Curled in the corner in fetal position of the infirmary he was forced to back into.

"Dude." Ace said when he saw Sabo.

"I need my medicine…but I don't want to go there…" Sabo mumbled to himself.

"C'mon, meeting time. If I have to go then you do too." Ace waved a hand in front of Sabo but had no reaction. _'What's up with him?'_ Ace thought to himself. He shrugged and went over to Sabo, carefully hauling his brother up. "Snap out of it, we got people to see and talk to." Ace said, stirring Sabo from his stupor.

"Fine, fine." Sabo sighed as he filed his worries for later.

* * *

The meeting wasn't as intense at the ones Sabo was used to. Even before he had gotten the chief position, the meetings were all super intense. Too much information being spat out and people have to absorb all the info, going over missions coming up to the date and planning future missions, checking over current field agents near areas notorious for slave trades.

It was pretty laid back actually.

Whitebeard had met with the other division commanders that included Fossa, Curiel and a few others, discussed things about the repairs on the deck. The next bunch of commanders that included Haruta, went over things about the Intel the other ships have gathered and anything bad going on in their territories. Marco, being the first division commander had to go to both. By the time both bothers got there, Marco, Izou, Thatch, Haruta and Whitebeard were already present.

"What're you still doing here, Haruta?" Ace asked when he still saw him in the room.

"Cause I can. I'm not missing out on this." He said.

"Can we start now, yoi?" Marco tiredly yawned. He needed a nap.

"To start off with, we'll be staying here for quite some time as the repairs go on and new additions added to the deck per Curiel's request. One of our ships should be meeting back here with us to rest and missions will still continue on. We will be entering the winter isles of East Blue, so make sure to stock up well on animals here." Whitebeard said to the commanders. "After repairs are done and a checking in with our other territory, we'll be sailing out of East Blue."

"So if anyone else has any last minute things to do here, now will be the time before we head into the colder part of east blue and leave altogether, yoi." Marco said.

"Aw, damn I hate the winter isles." Ace grumbled.

"And during our stay here while repairs are going, we'll be training your ass, Ace." Marco announced to the second division commander. Izou has a mission, so I'll be covering for him for your observation haki. I'm sure it won't be a problem for Sabo to teach Ace for armament haki, yoi."

"It's not. He can do it, I just have to jog his memory of when he did it is all." Sabo said as he remembered the fight they had. "Remember our fight? When we kicked. You had haki on your legs but I guess you didn't realize it."

"Seriously?" Ace grinned in excitement.

"Yeah, knowing you though you'd pick up haki pretty quick." Sabo said to his brother. The comment made Ace grin from ear to ear. "Also, one thing. Winter aisles, pretty cold. Problem is I don't have much clothes left after Ace burned several pairs of my pants and shirts." Sabo complained as he glared at Ace. "So I'm going to tag along and grab a few things while the others handle their mission."

"Good luck getting on the ship past the ladies' sight, yoi." Marco said and glanced at Ace, who understood the look.

"And I'm assuming you're going to get Ace as my babysitter." Sabo said, not missing the exchanged looks between the two.

"It'll be fun, besides I need to start looking for Izou's new kimono so he'll stop giving me the stink eye every morning."

"If that's the case, I'll be accompanying you." Izou smiled happily. Thatch snickered nearby at Ace and Sabo's to be misfortune. Shopping with Izou, the commander is going to take advantage and get as much as he can out of this opportunity. Ace glared and flicked a tiny fireball at Thatch's direction, nearly setting his hair ablaze.

"Do try and keep out of trouble." Whitebeard said to Ace and Sabo. He mistakenly believed that the blonde would be a bit more responsible but lesson learned. After that spar they had and Marco banning them from it unless it was on land, they had opted to fight with anything they could get their hands on. Swords, Pipes, mops. They were resourceful.

Even the newest addition to his family (although he probably didn't know that yet) at escaped from the infirmary several times and out of other's eyes, but Ace always knew where'd he'd be, and Marco, Izou or his other commanders' haki would figure out where he was hiding at.

Behind that calm demeanor of his, was a rowdy and mischievous brat, just like the rest of his sons. Including Marco, although he may not show it. Trying to 'set a good example' to the others but Thatch knew how to get the Phoenix riled up as well.

Whitebeard grinned at the two as he pondered in his thoughts, causing Ace is take slight offense.

"I always try to stay out of trouble!" Ace tried to defend himself. The scoff Sabo gave caused the second division commander to snap his head over to him. "What? I do!"

"Need I remind you, that you broke into a navy base and ran around under the guise as an officer and a captain?" Sabo crossed his arms and drummed his fingers against his own arm. "You also made a hefty dent in their provisions."

"I was hungry and I have to admit they have good food." Ace shrugged. "They said I could help myself. Besides, didn't you say you had plenty of operations where you went undercover? Mine was no different."

"I had missions! It's not like I enjoyed a majority of those disguises! They had _consequences_." Sabo angrily gritted out to his brother. "The point of being a spy is to not get caught. Or suspected." He huffed at him. "I'm careful and don't try reckless things." Ace raised an eyebrow at him, knowing that was a load of bull.

Everyone around them shook their head, Thatch snickering and Whitebeard laughing at the two brothers interactions.

"Don't worry, pops, I'll make sure they'll behave." Izou said. "The ship leaves tomorrow morning, so be ready by then." Both boys nodded.

"Good, we're done here." The captain announced, causing Marco to sigh in relief.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry bout the short chapter. I'm finally on a good schedule now that the chica finally had her baby and on her maternity leave. I've been busy with that job and other things. And i updated my laptop from windows 7 to 10 and my free subscription i had on WORD 2013 from when i was a college student poofed away so sorry if things are iffy with the format here. I'm working with Word online atm.
> 
> To honestly address a few things, i apologize if the story is a bit scattered. I have ADD so my thoughts would jump from here or there and as if you couldn't tell from my ass changing the summary two times. I wanted to take time and flesh out the story more, but i also didn't want to leave you guys hanging so here we are. I have things planned out already for this story on what will happen, some things predictable, some things not like with BlueJam. I just hope you guys will still like it in the end. Getting to the point, i'll try to triple check everything instead of once.
> 
> Also, i never realize i would enjoy writing Sabo so much. He's become my favorite character. My Hastings will be having their liquidation sell, errthing gotta go and i spotted Sabo and Ace figures there and Zoro as well so ima try to get my hands on 'em.
> 
> Someone should definitely write more stories on Sabo.
> 
> Anyways, i love you guys that are taking the time to leave reviews, i appreciate every one of them!
> 
> ps, BlueJam didn't complete his job. Just a hint for the upcoming arc. No, Caribou ain't showing up no mo'.
> 
> Bye guys!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So, this is my first in One Piece. Kinda feel bad that I keep losing interest in my other stories in the past. Eh, but my main interest right now is One Piece. Anyways, this is gonna hurt now.
> 
> This story was inspired by Icon for Hire’s song “Hope of Morning.”
> 
> Also, I suck at grammar, so bear with me on that.


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